Artwork Submission Guidelines
Which file do I submit?
Creating and submitting files that meet certain design standards and are saved out in particular files types saves us time during the design and pre-production phase of your project. It also ensures that we can achieve the highest quality standards possible in your fiinished product. You can use the following guidelines to help move your project along as quickly as possible.
File TYPES
We work regularly with many different file types but the preferred file types to use are:
.eps, .ai, .pdf, .jpg (hi-res), .tiff
File Sizes
When submitting files that contain photographic elements (raster graphics) the general rule is BIGGER IS BETTER. We recommend files that are 1mb (1000kb), or larger, whenever possible. In most cases grabbing the company logo off your website header WILL NOT make for a great sign/banner/etc. Files used in web design are generally very small and are optimized to be seen on computer screens at a small scale. When you take these small files and scale them up for large format printing you can end up with pixellation and poor image quality.
Note: Vector Files (.eps, .ai, .pdf) may be on the smaller side without causing quality issues.
Where can I find these files?
If you're not computer savy or graphically inclined and are unsure of where or how to locate these files there are a number of ways to track them down.
Marketing Departments - If you're part of a larger company you should be able to contact your marketing department and have them forward the appropriate files to us. Feel free to cut out the middle man and pass our contact info on to your marketing dept. so they can get in touch with us directly to discuss what is required. This direct discussion often results in the quickest transfer of the proper files and avoids having to go back and forth numerous times between multiple parties.
Who Designed Your Logo? - In most cases the person/company who designed your logo will have access to good quality versions of your logo in multiple file types.
Printer / Embroidery / Web - If you've had business cards, stationary, apparel or a website designed or produced for you in the past, odds are that company has your logo / design files on hand.
Note: All of these are small format graphic applications. Even if you're able to track down artwork from these sources they may not be suitable for large format printing.
What if I can't locate a quality file?
Don't fret! We have designers in house that can recreate your logo and/or artwork in formats that will be suitable for large format printing.
Note: Projects that require artwork reconsruction will be subject to design time charges billed out at our normal hourly rate.
Submitting Files
There are a few simple ways to send us your logos and/or artwork.
You can send an email with your logos / artwork to any of the following emails. We of course recommend that you send the artwork files to the Signtek Industries staff member you�ve been in contact with for your project.
General Email
Travis Sewell
Luc Michaud
Kelly Ruston
Chris Sawtell
Note: Most email services will set an attatchment limit of 25mb, or less. If you have a file that exceeds your attatchment limit you can use one of the following methods below..
File Sharing Services
File sharing services are a simple and free way to send large files. You visit the service website, upload your file/s and enter the email address of the recipient you would like to send the files too. The service then sends us an email with a link we can use to download your files. There are many of these services out there but we most commonly use: www.sendspace.com / www.wetransfer.com / www.transferbigfiles.com
Dropbox
If you have a dropbox account you can create a shared folder which is accessible by you and us. Dropbox also has the additional benefit of being able to add or delete files from this shared folder as needed so if we work on additional jobs for you in the future you can simply drop your new files into the existing folder for easy access.
USB Drives / DVD
If you'd like to burn a few calories getting us your files you can bring them to us on a USB drive or DVD. Our shop is located at
619 3rd Ave in Prince George, BC V2N 3C2
Questions
Feel free to contact us at any time if you have questions regarding setting up or submitting arwork for your project. We realize this technical stuff can be a bit tricky for some people and we'll try and help you figure it out any way we can.
Designers
Printing and large format printing specifically has a few special considerations to take into account as a designer when you are creating/submitting your artwork for print. Please follow the guidelines below to make the pre-production process as smooth and cost effective as possible for your company and/or client.
Fonts
To ensure your fonts are printed exactly as they appear on your screen it is extremely important that you EXPAND, EXPLODE or RASTERIZE all text copy to shapes before you save out your final version. We also request that you attach any .ttf files of each font used in the file to your artwork submissions. This allows us flexibility in solving text errors or formatting problems quickly on our end if possible. In some instances we may require that you correct issues on your end and re-submit the artwork after corrections have been made.
DPI
In order to have good final print quality please follow the chart below for minimum DPI recommendations. Be mindful of your DPI, particularly when scaling objects or files up as quality loss will occur.
Design Scale |
||
Full |
Half |
Quarter |
72 DPI |
150 DPI |
300 DPI |
Pantone Colours
If your project requires specific color matches please include all Pantone Color Match codes with your artwork submissions. If no PCM�s are included in your submissions your files will be sent to the printer as received and we will not double check color matching.
Note: In most cases we are able to get an almost bang on match to most PCM's but there are instances where a vinyl is unavailable as an exact match and the color is also not able to be replicated properly on the printer. In these cases you will be notified so we can work together to select the closest suitable color together.
Gradients
Have you ever received an item back from the printer and the smooth gradient you saw on screen looks kinda blocky or stepped in the actual print? This is controlled by how you save out your file. Depending on your design program you may have options to save out your file as an 8, 16, 24 and 30 bit per channel file. The higher the channel the smoother the gradient.
Note: Not all computers, monitors and/or software support the higher bit channels. Usually a 16 bit file is a smooth enough gradient look for most projects. If you are concerned about the gradient in a particular file we can do a test print of a small section.
File Types
We can work with most major design files but prefer: .eps, .ai, .pdf, .jpg (hi-res) and .tiff. Please do not submit InDesign files (.indd) or Corel Draw (.cdr) for print as we've found there tend to be formatting issues. Feel free to set up files in those programs but save them out as one of the preferred file types listed above.
