Artwork Guidelines

A typical monitor displays images at 72 dpi, but a typical printed piece is produced at minimum 2400dpi. What does that mean? To ensure a crisp, sharp image, the original resolution of your file should be at least 300dpi. Since resolution is inversely proportional to the size, a big 16”x12” image at 72dpi will produce a sharp picture (300dpi) at about 3.5”x2.75”.

The monitor makes millions of colors using Red, Green, and Blue light rays. In printing, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black inks are solely used for producing millions of colors. What does this mean? All images, especially ones taken with digital cameras, should be converted to CMYK color mode before using them in your designs.

JPEG (Joint Photographers Expert Graphics) file format is a LOSSY compression commonly used for images. While it is ok to use JPEG (when quality is set to maximum and has a resolution of min. 300dpi), the preferred file format for images are TIF and EPS, both of which should not be compressed.

In most cases, no two independent desktop computers have identical fonts installed. What does this mean? All fonts used in your design must be included along with your artwork files. This includes all the styles of the fonts. For example, if you are using boldface of “Adobe Garamond׆, “Adobe Garamond Bold” font file should also be provided to us. The best way to collect fonts used in design is using the built-in “Package” feature (InDesign) or “Collect for Output” (QuarkXpress), or use a font management/preflight software.

To avoid font conflicts (i.e. missing fonts), it is best to convert fonts to outlines (Illustrator) and/or make PDF files from your application.

A vector-based software such as Adobe Illustrator has a function called “Create Outlines” that convert all fonts to outlines (or shapes). This is the best way to preserve the correct appearance of the fonts used without having to provide us the font files.

Single Sheeet:
Document must be created at the final trim size.

Multiple Pages/Sheets (i.e. catalog):
The document must be created at the final page size. For instance, if it is a 8.5”x11” catalog, please set your document to reader’s spread layout at 8.5”x11”. Please do not provide us the pages in a printer’s spread at 11”x17”.

If you are providing us a print-ready PDF, the crop marks must be 1/8” (9pt) away from the trim edge. Please do not include any other marks.

If you want any image/graphics to come to the edge of the paper, you must include a bleed in your layout document. A bleed is an artwork that extends beyond the trim edge of the paper. We require all bleeds to extend 1/8” beyond the edge of the trim.

Print production only uses Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black for reproducing full-color images/graphics. As such, when creating documents for print, you must be in the CMYK color mode.

If you plan to print in spot colors (i.e. Pantone colors), please use the appropriate swatch book and use the spot colors wherever appropriate. Please be certain that you do not use too many spot colors, as each color requires costly setups. In another words, if you want a rainbow effect, you could simply use CMYK values instead of selecting 7 different spot colors.