Since getting into video and television production in the 80s, I’ve learned all about the term safe area. It’s a concept that seems to be mentioned less frequently these days, although its importance in and outside of video and television production persists and grows: in printing and, more importantly, in new media, notably blogs, audio podcasts, social media and audiobooks today. cover art. Before, I will review the initial reasons for safe zones in television (and its subsets Action Safe Area and Title Safe Area) with modern hardware and software tools to facilitate compliance, followed by the reasons for safe zones in printing and in the more recent versions mentioned above. media.

Security zone in television and its subsets

Original televisions (from the 1930s to the early 2000s) had CRT (cathode ray tube) screens. The display on the CRT would vary depending on the varying electrical voltage available at the viewers’ homes. Because this varied, TV manufacturers began factory calibrating them with overscan. This is why television producers could not know for sure where the visible edges of the image would be. To compensate, our ancestors in video and television production defined these security sub-zones:

• Title Safety Zone – An area visible to all reasonably maintained televisions, where text was certain not to be cut off.
• Action Safety Zone – A larger area that represented where a “perfect” set (with high precision to allow less overscan) would cut off the image.

Despite the widespread adoption of LCD televisions which do not require Since their image sizes can fortunately remain the same regardless of voltage variations, many LCD TVs are still equipped with overscan. enabled by defaultalthough it can be disabled by the user using the TV’s on-screen menus. Since many users are unaware that this option exists, we video producers still have to adhere to the 2025 safe zones for the foreseeable future. This is also true whether the video we create will be displayed on a traditional broadcast, on a smart TV connected directly to the Internet, or via a set-top box like an Amazon Fire TV stick, AppleTV, or Roku box/stick.

Some tools to respect the television safety zone

Many professional instructors, including Blackmagic SmartView 4K G3 I covered in April 2024 include safety zone indicators.

Apple’s Final Cut Pro comes with secure overlays for titles and actions that you can show or hide.

Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve Studio also includes it, as shown in the video above from Resolve Training.

Secure area for audio podcasting

An example is Apple’s stipulation in its guidelines for creating audio podcasts:

“Keep all essential design elements within the artistic safety zone. Anything placed outside of the art safety zone is subject to cropping and/or UI overlays.”

Source: here.

Beyond Apple, that is, other places where an audio podcast or its episodes are promoted, see the next section.

Today’s Blogs, Social Media, and Audiobook Covers

After decades of experience publishing content on blogs (WordPress and others) and many social media platforms, I know that many of them will automatically crop a significant percentage of a main image for display on the main page or in the search results. The auto cropping they do is similar to overscanning on TVs, but worse! For this reason, I very often create a larger version (with an additional safe zone) to upload in the “main image” section of the blog and in promotion on social networks, so that the image still has value after this reframing. I generally don’t use this larger version (with an additional safety zone) because it usually takes up too much space in the column.

The same goes for today’s audiobook and podcast covers for the same reasons.

Print safe zone = bleed

In printing, bleed is a print that extends beyond the edge of where the sheet will be trimmed. In other words, bleed is the area to be trimmed. Bleed is the part on the side of a document that gives the printer a small gap to account for the natural movement of the paper during guillotine and design inconsistencies. Artwork and background colors often extend to the bleed area. After trimming, bleed ensures that no unprinted edges appear in the final cropped document.

It is very difficult to print exactly to the edge of a sheet of paper/card, so to achieve this it is necessary to print a slightly larger area than necessary and then trim the paper/card down to the final size required. Images, background images, and fills intended to extend to the edge of the page should be extended beyond the trim line to provide bleed.

In the United States, bleeding is usually 1/8 inch from where the cut is to be made. In Europe, bleeds are usually between 2 and 5 mm from where the cut is to be made. This may vary from one printing company to another. Some printers require specific sizes; Most of these companies outline specific requests on their website or offer templates already set to the required bleed settings.

Source about this print bleed information: here.

Lee is this article in good castle

The “safe zone” will have more importance in 2025

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