Artwork Guidelines

Below you will find design guidelines for our products. If you are not familiar with this information, please don’t worry. Our team of graphic designers will be happy to create your design for you.

The information below is for the convenience of some of our customers. You always have the option to simply describe your design to us and we’ll take it from there. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to e-mail us or call us at 716-923-3483.


Bleeds: Please extend your background images/colors by .25″ total (.125″ per side) as the area to be trimmed if your design needs a bleed (the ink goes all the way to the edge and does not have a white border on all four sides). For example, if you are designing a 3″ x 5″ oval sticker, your submitted design should be 3.25″ x 5.25″ (with your finished sticker size still being 3″ x 5″).

DPI: Vector artwork (such as .ai or .eps files) is preferred; however, we accept all artwork including raster designs (such as .psd or .jpg files). If you are submitting raster artwork, the ideal dpi resolution is 300 dpi (compressed into .zip format for larger file sizes). If 300 dpi is not possible, simply submit what you have and we will work to make your artwork ‘camera-ready’. (Ideally, start your design at 300 DPI. Changing a low DPI to a higher DPI after the fact will result in blurriness.)

Full Color vs. Spot Color: All magnets, posters, and coasters are printed in full color (4-color process). All stickers are printed as either spot color or full color (4-color process). “Spot” refers to individual inks (such as red, green, black, etc).

Pantone Colors: Pantone matches are available for an additional charge. Please contact us for details.

Screens: Screened colors work well in 4-color printing. Screens are not generally recommended for spot color items, however we can print within the range of 15% – 85%.

Bleed

When an image extends beyond the trimmed edge. If your image is not white on all four sides, a bleed is necessary.

Resolution

Amount of detail of an image. Usually measured in dots per inch (DPI). The higher the DPI, the more detailed the image will be.

Full Color (4-Color) Process Printing

A printing technique that uses cyan, magenta, yellow, and black to create full-color images.

Pantone Matching System (PMS)

Standard color matching system used in the printing industry; used to produce exact color matches.

Raster Image

An image made up of pixels. Opposite of a vector image (shapes generated mathematically).

Vector Images

Mathematical shapes that can be scaled or edited without affecting image resolution. Adobe Illustrator is a popular vector design program.