Direct mail works best when the design does its job, and that means looking as good in a recipient's hands as it did on your screen. Poor design choices, even subtle ones, can undermine an otherwise strong campaign. This guide covers the most common direct mail design mistakes and how to fix them before you press send.
Yes, significantly. According to a 2024 report by CompereMedia, 85% of marketers agree that direct mail delivers the best conversion rate of all channels they use (Source: CompereMedia). More than 70% of marketers also agree that paper stock quality alone impacts brand impressions (Source: Simpli). In other words, people notice, and they judge. A well-designed piece commands attention. A poorly designed one goes straight into the bin.
When a printed piece is folded, the fold creates a physical crease that runs straight through your artwork. Any text, logo, or key visual element sitting on or near that line becomes distorted, broken, or unreadable.
Always work from a template that shows fold lines clearly, and treat those lines as exclusion zones. Keep all critical text, headlines, logos, and calls to action at least 5mm away from any fold.
If you're designing a folded letter or self-mailer through Stannp.com, download the design specification guides from the website, as these include fold line markers and safe zone indicators to help you set up your artwork correctly.
Digital screens emit light, making even the most delicate colour transitions appear vivid. Print reflects light. A gradient that shifts from white to a very light grey or pale colour will often print almost entirely white, with the transition barely visible. The same applies to fine repeating patterns, watermark-style textures, or background illustrations built from thin lines. On screen, they look elegant; in print, they can sometimes become muddy, invisible, or patchy.
This matters more than it might seem. Designers often use subtle gradients to add depth and visual interest to a plain background.
Make your gradients bolder and more deliberate. If you want a gradient, ensure there is enough contrast between the start and end colours for both to be clearly visible in print.
Images that look sharp on a screen will appear blurry or pixelated when printed. Print requires a minimum of 300dpi at the intended print size, and ideally higher for anything detailed or photographic.
Always source print-ready images at 300dpi or above. When scaling images up, resolution degrades, so if you're working with a smaller image and enlarging it to fill a postcard, check the resolution at the final size, not the original.
Bleed refers to the area of your design that extends beyond the final cut edge of the printed piece. Without bleed, even tiny variations in the cutting process can leave a thin white border around your design.
Safe zones are the inner margins where all important content (text, logos, contact details) should sit, away from the cut edge. Set up your artwork with at least 3mm of bleed on all sides and keep key content at least 5mm from the trim edge.
Typography is where many direct mail pieces lose their impact. Common issues include:
In digital design, you can zoom in if the text is small. In print, what you see is what the recipient gets, and if they have to squint, they won't bother.
Choose clean, legible fonts for body copy. Keep headline fonts bold enough to stand out, and check that your text has sufficient contrast against its background. Proof your design at the actual printed size on paper, not on screen.
Colours rendered in RGB (the colour mode used by screens) look different to colours printed in CMYK (subtractive colour model).
If your design is built in RGB and you don't convert it to CMYK before submitting, the printer will do the conversion automatically, and the result may not match your expectations.
Build or convert your artwork to CMYK before sending for print. If your brand colours have specific Pantone or CMYK values, use those exactly. Check your design software's colour settings and always request a colour proof if the accuracy of your brand colour is critical.
A design with too many competing elements, like multiple headline sizes, dense blocks of copy, and five different calls to action, makes it hard for the eye to know where to go.
Design with a clear visual hierarchy. One main headline. One primary message. One call to action. Use white space deliberately; it's not wasted space, it's breathing room that makes your key message stand out. Keep body copy concise and scannable.
A design created for a postcard will not simply scale up for a letter or self-mailer/greetings card. Different formats have different requirements, fold patterns, address placement rules, and read sequences. A letter, for example, has a natural reading order from top to bottom. A postcard needs to work as a single, instant impression.
Design from the format outward, not from a blank canvas. Understand how the piece will be folded, how it will arrive, and how the recipient will hold and interact with it.
The most effective direct mail campaigns combine strong targeting with strong design. One without the other underperforms. The mistakes covered in this guide are all preventable; most come down to designing for screen rather than print and skipping the step of checking artwork on actual paper before you send.
Stannp.com's design specification guides and format templates are built to help you avoid exactly these issues. Whether you're uploading your own PDF or designing in-platform, you'll have clear guidance on bleed, safe zones, fold lines, and resolution requirements for every format.
Ready to start? Create your free Stannp.com account and send a test piece before scaling up. With no minimum order, there's no reason not to check your design in the real world before your full campaign goes out.
Screens emit light, making subtle colour differences easy to see. Print reflects light, so low-contrast colour transitions, particularly between white and a light tint, often become nearly invisible. Increase the contrast in your gradient to ensure both ends are clearly visible when printed.
All images should be at least 300dpi at the final intended print size. Images pulled from websites or social media are typically 72dpi and will print blurry. Always source print-ready images, and check resolution at the actual output size rather than the original file size.
Bleed is the area of your design that extends beyond the final trim edge, typically 3mm on all sides. It ensures that if the cut varies very slightly, there is no white border showing at the edge. Without bleed, solid-colour or image backgrounds can appear to have an uneven white margin once cut.
No. Always keep important content like text, logos, phone numbers, and QR codes at least 5mm inside the trim edge. This is the safe zone. Content too close to the edge risks being cut off.
The physical crease of a fold distorts and breaks text that sits on or directly next to it. On heavier stocks, the crease is deeper. On lighter stocks, ink can crack along the fold. Keep all text and key visuals at least 5mm away from any fold line.
Text or logos placed across fold lines is one of the most common and most avoidable. A close second is subtle gradients or background patterns that look great on screen but are barely visible once printed. Both are easily fixed with the right templates and a physical proof.