About Artwork

If you want to supply your own artwork we have just a few simple rules you need to follow to ensure that everything turns out just perfect…

Colours
Most of our printing is in four colour process..CMYK. That means that our presses don’t understand what RGB is! Make sure all the images that you use (photos and bitmaps) are converted to CMYK.  If you must have Pantone spot colours ensure that your final PDF settings don’t convert the spot colours to CMYK.  Unfortunately not all pantone/spot colours convert to CMYK successfully. Be warned, it is imposible to match printing colours to web/screen colours, as they are RGB. 
Please contact us to help you with your colour choices.

Programs 
Most people know how to use Word or Publisher, unfortunately these programs are based on RGB so we can not colour match or except files in these formats.  We recommend you use Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw.
If you have Illustrator, Corel, Word or Publisher files, send them in – we can get them print-ready but there will be a charge depending on the amount of “tweaking” we have to do.

Fonts
Remember to always convert your fonts to curves or outlines and while we’re on the subject of text… PLEASE DO NOT create your text with photo-editing software such as Adobe Photoshop – your text WILL end up with rough, pixellated edges.  Use a vector programme for text such as Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw.

Resolution
If you give us low resolution images for example a 72dpi photo then you’re going to be very disappointed.
WARNING – DO NOT COPY IMAGES OF WEBSITES, you may be breaching copyright laws and the resolution is very low, not suitable for printing and are in RBG.  Even if you try to “upsize” them to 300dpi you’re not going to get the best results.
IDEALLY – Take high-res photos to start with. All photos/bitmap images must be 300dpi and CMYK.

Bleed
Even the best guillotiners in the world can get it wrong.. Even a fraction of a millimetre will show.
Make sure you have a minimum of 3-5mm bleed on every page where the colour touches the edge of the trimmed page.
For example most business cards 90mm x 55mm, so your bleed will extend to a minimum of 96mm x 61mm.
Contact us for hlep.

Layout
Try to keep text at least 5mm from the edge of the media (writing and other important information and avoid thin/line borders. Text and images that are too close to the edges look really bad and off balance.

Format
Once you are satisfied that you have met all of these requirements, prepare your file as a PDF with crop marks – again make sure your settings are correct – ask us for more info on setting up your PDF settings if necessary.