How to set up your design for a Gate Fold leaflet
A Gate Fold leaflet offers a premium finish—making it a popular choice for menus, price lists, and promotional material. However, it does require a few extra steps during the design process to ensure the fold aligns correctly.
One common issue is incorrect bleed setup, which can lead to misaligned or incomplete prints. In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to set up your Gate Fold artwork properly—so you can be confident your final print looks just as impressive as you imagined.
Why is setting up your bleed crucial when designing a Gate Fold?
Bleed is important on all printed artwork, but it is especially important on a Gate Fold leaflet. If the bleed is done incorrectly, the issue will be the first thing you notice when you look at the front of the leaflet.
Often, people don’t set up the bleed on the outer panels of the design, therefore when the outer panels fold in and meet in the middle, there is a harsh white line where the bleed is missing.
Alternatively, if the front design is not positioned correctly, then some elements cross over the gap and don’t look seamless.
Setting the Bleed for a Gate Fold leaflet.
Like all paper print, bleed is essential to the production of your print for a professional finish. However, when applying bleed to the outer panels for a gate fold, there are a few important things to keep in mind.
Bleed refers to the area where design elements extend beyond the trim line and are trimmed off during production. Because there can be slight movement when the sheets are cut, it’s important to factor this into your design.
Avoid simply dragging elements over the trim line into the bleed area. This won’t create the intended alignment. Since 3mm is trimmed from each adjoining panel, this technique can result in a total gap of 6mm in your final print—leaving a noticeable break in your design across the fold.
Ideally, your graphic should extend beyond the trim line without being cropped or stretched. This ensures that when the 3mm bleed is trimmed away, the design continues naturally from one panel to the next, creating a consistent flow across the fold.
Note - As with any folded product, a precise finish can’t always be guaranteed. For gate folds, the alignment at the join may be slightly off due to production tolerances.
We recommend avoiding intricate details or key design elements that rely on perfect alignment at the centre fold.
Repeat this process on both joining panels. For the rest of the document, you can apply a standard bleed around the outer edges, as no further joins are required.
When set up correctly, the final print will feature a continuous front gate panel with no visible imperfections.
