When submitting artwork for reference to printing there are some guidelines to follow to make the process as easy and time-efficient as possible, potentially saving you costs. We do offer design services, which are currently* $60 per hour (if they are required) and will be noted in your quotation (based on submitted or noted artwork). Most supplied artwork will require some alteration before we can use it, however, additional costs can be negated if the design input required will take under 15 minutes.
The artwork set-up methods change depending on the printing process and a more detailed explanation of preferred formats for submitted artwork is listed below.
If you have any additional questions, you can contact us.
File Formats
We prefer artwork to be supplied as vector graphics (made in Adobe Illustrator/Corel Draw) and supplied in .ai, .cdr, .pdf, .eps or .ps formats if possible. If the artwork is an image that cannot be made scalable/vectorised without loss of quality (e.g. a photo), a high resolution (hi-res) bitmap (.bmp, .tif, .jpg, .png, etc.) or Photoshop .psd supplied.
These formats enable us to maintain the best quality throughout set-up processes.
Work Around’s
If artwork is simple, and can be created in a minimal amount of time, there may be no need for additional artwork costs. If you only require text, or the image/logo is simple and made up of less than 4 solid colours we may be able to digitise your artwork without excess additional effort. Complex images (such as photos or detailed artwork) or images that are low resolution, pixelated or unintentionally blurry will need to be quoted including additional artwork costs. If you require any changes or additions to be made, the same “15 minutes or less” rule applies.
Don’t Do’s
A low-resolution image sourced from the internet is not a good candidate for printing on a large sign or sometimes even on a t-shirt. You can only increase the size of an image by around 40% before it starts to drastically lose quality. For example, if it looks about an inch on the computer screen, there’s a good chance that’s as large as we’ll be able to print it.
We will let you know whether there are any issues with supplied artwork at the time it’s supplied and what we can do about them.
*December 2015