ARTWORK and DESIGN is EVERYTHING
There, I've said it ... artwork is the design that actually gets put on to the paper – it's what people actually see. Printing is just the tool that transmits it to the world (as far as a physical product is concerned). An artist wouldn't paint a masterpiece with a bad brush and crappy paints, and a builder wouldn't build a mansion without making sure the foundations and all the preparatory work was sound. It's no different when creating something to be printed.
For best results your artwork must be Designed4print
If this stage is not addressed properly it could really let you down.
Having said that, there are different level requirements ... not every print job needs to fulfill the same task. If you are simply sending out an informational letter the requirement is a professional presentation, it doesn't necessarily need full colour and high impact. However, if you are distributing flyers for an event, service or product, then they need to grab attention and create interest quickly.
The design plays a far greater part in this than the printing.
We appreciate that high quality artwork comes at a price, so we offer a basic ECONOMY and STANDARD artwork service for most of our basic products just to make the decision process a little easier.
Of course, we will design anything you want beyond the basic, just get in touch and we'd be happy to quote
There, I've said it ... artwork is the design that actually gets put on to the paper – it's what people actually see. Printing is just the tool that transmits it to the world (as far as a physical product is concerned). An artist wouldn't paint a masterpiece with a bad brush and crappy paints, and a builder wouldn't build a mansion without making sure the foundations and all the preparatory work was sound. It's no different when creating something to be printed.
For best results your artwork must be Designed4print
If this stage is not addressed properly it could really let you down.
Having said that, there are different level requirements ... not every print job needs to fulfill the same task. If you are simply sending out an informational letter the requirement is a professional presentation, it doesn't necessarily need full colour and high impact. However, if you are distributing flyers for an event, service or product, then they need to grab attention and create interest quickly.
The design plays a far greater part in this than the printing.
We appreciate that high quality artwork comes at a price, so we offer a basic ECONOMY and STANDARD artwork service for most of our basic products just to make the decision process a little easier.
Of course, we will design anything you want beyond the basic, just get in touch and we'd be happy to quote
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Buy your artwork at the outset if you require it. This is available for most standard products at the two different levels. Obviously some jobs will need a custom quote. But look out for the Artwork included logo that appears with some products where we just know you're going to need it!
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Supplying Artwork
The end product can only be as good as the artwork supplied and the original components used. Ideally, all artwork should be supplied in CMYK format, we can work from RGB but for most print material the colour games will be converted and this will affect the trueness of the colours. We always ask for a PDF file ideally, although we can work from JPG, PNG, WORD.doc and OFFICE.odt files. The pdf file must contain high resolution images (300dpi or higher) and ideally, fonts should be embedded. (Disclaimer: Lawfully, we advise you check your end-user license agreement to ensure you are permitted to embed fonts). To explain all the technical stuff, and to make clearer some of the following guidelines we have produced a simple booklet that shows how to create artwork for print for the complete novice. If you are not professionally experienced but are planning on creating your own artwork we highly recommend you download this FREE file. |
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Images and Vector Files
All images should be a minimum of 300dpi and should not be scaled up in your artwork by more than 125%. Images taken from the internet will NOT be good enough quality for professional printing as the typical resolution used on the web is 72dpi. Logos and illustrations which are not vector based, should also adhere to these rules. Vector artwork can be scaled as required. Take care with compression of images, keep this to a minimum to avoid the printed image appearing degraded when printed.
We recommend that all images, logos and illustrations are converted to CMYK prior to creating the PDF file to avoid unexpected results. Certain colours which may look good on screen in RGB will simply never print with the same vibrancy when converted to CMYK particularly neons, deep blues and bright reds. Digital cameras use RGB colour space and therefore we recommend images are converted to CMYK in photoshop or an equivalent programme with the capability to retouch and enhance the colours as required.
Ensure that all vector files used also use the CMYK colour space and do NOT include spot colours or low resolution images. If you have referenced colour swatches such as Pantone, ensure these colours are converted to CMYK in your document.
All images should be a minimum of 300dpi and should not be scaled up in your artwork by more than 125%. Images taken from the internet will NOT be good enough quality for professional printing as the typical resolution used on the web is 72dpi. Logos and illustrations which are not vector based, should also adhere to these rules. Vector artwork can be scaled as required. Take care with compression of images, keep this to a minimum to avoid the printed image appearing degraded when printed.
We recommend that all images, logos and illustrations are converted to CMYK prior to creating the PDF file to avoid unexpected results. Certain colours which may look good on screen in RGB will simply never print with the same vibrancy when converted to CMYK particularly neons, deep blues and bright reds. Digital cameras use RGB colour space and therefore we recommend images are converted to CMYK in photoshop or an equivalent programme with the capability to retouch and enhance the colours as required.
Ensure that all vector files used also use the CMYK colour space and do NOT include spot colours or low resolution images. If you have referenced colour swatches such as Pantone, ensure these colours are converted to CMYK in your document.
Bleed
The documents bleed is an additional area outside the page size, which includes any items that you would like to ‘bleed off’ the edges of your page/printed job. The bleed will be trimmed off the job but it allows for the blade bends of 1-1.5mm on the guillotine when a stack of paper is trimmed. Adding the required bleed to your job will prevent your trimmed page having white borders.
Page 'safe' area
In order to ensure text and important information is not trimmed off your job, we recommend that you do not place items within 3mm of the trimmed edge unless you need them to bleed off.
The documents bleed is an additional area outside the page size, which includes any items that you would like to ‘bleed off’ the edges of your page/printed job. The bleed will be trimmed off the job but it allows for the blade bends of 1-1.5mm on the guillotine when a stack of paper is trimmed. Adding the required bleed to your job will prevent your trimmed page having white borders.
Page 'safe' area
In order to ensure text and important information is not trimmed off your job, we recommend that you do not place items within 3mm of the trimmed edge unless you need them to bleed off.
Document Sizes and formatting
There are two ways you can set your document page size: Either set it to reflect the trimmed size of your job, in which case you should specify bleed as 3mm on all edges when creating your pdf and this will then be included on your pdf file automatically. If you are a seasoned or professional designer following this method then obviously you should also set the pdf file to include crop marks.
However, we work frequently from size for size files, that is to say a file has been created with the bleed included in which case crop marks are not necessary as the job will automatically be trimmed to standard print ordered size.
Eg: an A4 document without crop marks but requiring bleed must be supplied at a size of 216 x 303 (3mm bleed all round) - it will automatically be trimmed to 210 x 297
NOTE: If there is NO bleed on your work (ie. white paper within 5mm of every page edge) then just provide a document that is the correct finished page size.
Booklets/multi page documents: Please send as a continuous multi-page file with all pages in order, DON'T try to impose the page order using print or design spreads such as are supplied with Microsoft office and other desk top publishing programmes.
Folded single sheet leaflets: When it is clear that only one folded sheet is required then you CAN impose the individual sides yourself. Eg: an A4 leaflet folded in half to form 4 sides of A5 should be laid out as a double-sided A4 sheet with the A5 sides in correct imposition order.
Common page sizes
A3 297 x 420mm
A4 210 x 297mm
A5 148 x 210mm
A6 105 x 148mm
There are two ways you can set your document page size: Either set it to reflect the trimmed size of your job, in which case you should specify bleed as 3mm on all edges when creating your pdf and this will then be included on your pdf file automatically. If you are a seasoned or professional designer following this method then obviously you should also set the pdf file to include crop marks.
However, we work frequently from size for size files, that is to say a file has been created with the bleed included in which case crop marks are not necessary as the job will automatically be trimmed to standard print ordered size.
Eg: an A4 document without crop marks but requiring bleed must be supplied at a size of 216 x 303 (3mm bleed all round) - it will automatically be trimmed to 210 x 297
NOTE: If there is NO bleed on your work (ie. white paper within 5mm of every page edge) then just provide a document that is the correct finished page size.
Booklets/multi page documents: Please send as a continuous multi-page file with all pages in order, DON'T try to impose the page order using print or design spreads such as are supplied with Microsoft office and other desk top publishing programmes.
Folded single sheet leaflets: When it is clear that only one folded sheet is required then you CAN impose the individual sides yourself. Eg: an A4 leaflet folded in half to form 4 sides of A5 should be laid out as a double-sided A4 sheet with the A5 sides in correct imposition order.
Common page sizes
A3 297 x 420mm
A4 210 x 297mm
A5 148 x 210mm
A6 105 x 148mm
Creating the PDF file
As well as the above measurement specifications there are one or two other important points in order to get the best result.
If your authoring application allows you to preflight your document prior to conversion to pdf format, we recommend you do this as it will highlight missing fonts, unlinked or missing images etc.
When creating your print quality pdf file you must ensure that you use the correct settings, by default the Acrobat PDFMaker in Microsoft Office creates PDF files using standard settings, these do NOT meet the requirements for professional printing. If you are using a PC and do not have a PDF convertor you can download and install PrimoPDF for free.
The most common design tools such as those in the Adobe print publishing range and Quark Xpress include presets for print quality pdf generation.
As well as the above measurement specifications there are one or two other important points in order to get the best result.
If your authoring application allows you to preflight your document prior to conversion to pdf format, we recommend you do this as it will highlight missing fonts, unlinked or missing images etc.
When creating your print quality pdf file you must ensure that you use the correct settings, by default the Acrobat PDFMaker in Microsoft Office creates PDF files using standard settings, these do NOT meet the requirements for professional printing. If you are using a PC and do not have a PDF convertor you can download and install PrimoPDF for free.
The most common design tools such as those in the Adobe print publishing range and Quark Xpress include presets for print quality pdf generation.