Artwork Guidelines
How do you setup artwork for printing? All printers artwork requirements are different but the basics are the same so below is some guidelines to get you started with CBF.
- Right where to start? What programme are you going to use to create your artwork, There are many programmes on the market some better than others. We recommend using Adobe’s Illustrator, Photoshop, In-design, Corel Draw or Quark, if you do not have access to these professional packages Microsoft’s Publisher will give you a good start. If you get any options for DPI (Dots per inch) select 300 to get the best quality images and text and CMYK for the colour profile. Now establish the size of the finished printed item? DL – 99 x 210 mm A6 – 148.5 x 110mm A5 – 148.5 x 210 mm A4 – 210 x 297 mm A3 – 420 x 297 mm These are set industry standard sizes but your document can be any size in between talk to us about your requirements. now, how many printed pages are you looking to end up with? Always remember anything above 1 or 2 you have to count in increments of 4 i.e. for a booklet or magazine, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28 and so on, unless we are printing and wiro, coil (spiral) binding, or inserting into a folder/binder, in which case count in two’s. HINT: When setting up your artwork keep your message clear and simple, the reader of your document won’t finish your sales pitch or message. Remember your potential customer will only react to your special offer or price you’re promoting and not how long you have been established or your company name. Don’t forget in your design to take into account what the customer sees don’t create imagery or text too close to the binding edge as it will be hard to see once printed and finished. When finishing your artwork up remember to setup your ‘bleed’, this is the area around the document that you have to let the colour run off in order that you end up with colour right up to the edge, we recommend at least 3mm. Right, now you have created your artwork; you need to get it ready for printing. You can supply the saved files you have been working on in various formats i.e. .JPG/ .JPEG, TIF/ .TIFF, EPS, PSD (Adobe Photoshop), AI (Adobe Illustrator),INDD (Adobe InDesign), QXD (Quark Xpress) FH9, FHX etc (Aldus/ Adobe Freehand) but this might bring issues with the image quality and fonts you have used (we might not have the same versions that you do. So to avoid most problems you need to convert it to a PDF (Portable Document Format), Adobe’s PDF format ensures that all the correct fonts and colours are setup ready for printing (if the settings are correct) you can buy a copy of the programme from adobe’s website, alternatively there are free PDF writers available online just type in ‘free PDF writer’ into Google there will even be some review sites if you want to be picky but they generally do the same thing. Once your artwork is ready send it to CBF via email, CD, memory stick or FTP and we can start processing it. Don’t forget if you need any help with your artwork give us a call we can check your artwork for free, contact our customer support team so they can help you.