Artwork Requirements and Information for Promotional Gifts

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Artwork Requirements and Information for Promotional Gifts

PG Branding understands that few companies who are enquiring for promotional gifts will have their very own Design and Artwork Department, and quite often will provide designs in whatever format they have to hand. Ideally, PG Branding requires artwork to be provided with particular specifications in order to create visuals, produce samples and to custom print your ordered merchandise with high quality which will meet your exact requirements.

PG Branding has a professional Design and Artwork Department to ensure customer satisfaction, high quality and precision printing on all of our promotional gifts. Our Artwork Department offers information, help and advice, as well as any design services which you may require at minimal and competitive costs.

Therefore, we offer this Artwork section to provide information on our requirements, as well as contact information to our dedicated Design Department who will assist you in anything that you may wish to ask.

Printing Methods for Promotional Gifts

Digital / Litho Printing
Digital Printing is the process of taking a digital image and reproducing this image on an object or physical surface. Common types of digitally printed surfaces include paper, cardboard, film, cloth, vinyl, magnets, stickers or labels. Digital Print is possible with various desktop and industrial sized printers and can be used for small or large runs whilst remaining very cost effective. As opposed to resorting to solid, flat colours, digital printing allows for blends of colours and tone such as photos or digital graphics, however, to achieve a high quality digital print, the image resolution must be at least 300 DPI (dots per inch).

Embossing / Blocking
Embossing is a process which creates an impression of a design on to a surface which allows for marks to remain after pressure has been applied and then released. This process is dominantly used for leather goods such as leather folders, card holders and wallets. There are two main varieties of embossing which use different techniques in order to achieve two different results. Blind Embossing embosses a design which will remain the same colour as the product. Foil Blocking embosses a design with a metallic silver or gold foil.

Embroidery
The Embroidery process allows for artwork to be recreated onto fabric or cloth material by stitches of thread or yarn using needles and specialist equipment for mass production. Based on the colour coding of threads, embroiderers can closely match pantone colours although it is strongly advised to use solid coloured graphics as opposed to blends of colour or digital images in order to achieve maximum quality.

Engraving
Engraving is the process of cutting a design onto a hard, commonly flat surface and is performed by hand or by using laser technology when branding large quantities of promotional products. This process does not print colour, but allows for the colour of the product itself to show through the engraved design.

Moulding
Moulding is a process used for products that require the use of various materials to make bespoke items. Soft PVC and recycled plastic, for example, can be set within custom moulds to produce various products.

Pad Printing
The process of Pad Printing consists of applying ink to a product with a curved surface using a rubber pad which acts as a stamp. Because of the diverse shape range of products, Pad Printing is a very commonly used and popular method. Pens in particular use this method of print process.

Screen Printing
Screen Printing is a printmaking process based on the creation of individual screens for each colour present in a piece of artwork. Artwork for Screen Printing involves the separation of each colour used in the design. Each screen made then acts as a layer, with each layer printed in order to build up a complete image.

Transfer Printing
Transfer printing is a method of applying an image to a curved or uneven surface. It is most commonly used for printing onto porcelain, but can also be applied to various other surfaces, such as cloth. Transfer Printing allows for designs to include complete digital images.

File Types and Image Requirements

File types we work with at PG Branding
We accept EPS and PDF Files containing either high resolution bitmap images (300 dpi) for digital and litho printing, or vector images for printing by other methods such as screen printing. With all artwork, fonts need to be converted to outlines to avoid design alterations when your files are opened.

Bitmap Images
Bitmap images (also known as raster images), are made up of pixels within a grid. Pixels are tiny dots of colour that make up the image that you see.

Bitmap images are resolution dependent. The resolution of an image refers to the number of pixels and is stated as dpi (dots per inch). Bitmap images displayed on your computer screen are at 72 dpi. However, to successfully reproduce a bitmap image a printer needs a minimum of 300 dpi to create a crisp printed image.

Because bitmaps are resolution dependent, it is difficult to increase or decrease the size of an image without affecting the quality of the image. To reduce the size of a bitmap image you must discard pixels, but to increase the size of a bitmap image the software has to create new pixels. When creating pixels, software must estimate the colour values of the new pixels based on the surrounding existing pixels (a process called interpolation). Scaling down a bitmap to a smaller size doesn’t have any detrimental effect. In fact it effectively increases the dpi of the image so it will print more clearly.

Common bitmap formats are:
• BMP
• GIF
• JPEG, JPG
• PNG
• PCX
• TIFF
• PSD (Adobe Photoshop)

Vector Images
Vector images are suitable for all types of printing. They are made up of many individual, scalable objects. These objects are defined by mathematical equations rather than pixels, so they will always print at the highest quality. Objects may consist of lines, curves and shapes which can be edited with attributes such as colour, fill and outline.

Because they are scalable, vector images are resolution independent. The size of a vector image can be increased or decreased by any degree while the lines will remain crisp and sharp, both on your computer screen and in printed images. Fonts are a type of vector object (unless in a bitmap).

Vector images have many advantages, but the main disadvantage is that they are incapable of reproducing photo-realistic images. Vector images are made up of blocks or gradients of colour, but they cannot depict continuous subtle tones as photographs can. Vector images are generated by software. You cannot scan an image and save it as a vector file unless you use conversion software. However, a vector image can easily be converted to a bitmap image (a process called rasterizing).

Common Vector formats include:
• AI (Adobe Illustrator)
• CDR (CorelDRAW)
• CMX(Corel Exchange)
• CGM Computer Graphics Metafile
• DXF Auto CAD
• WMF Windows Metafile

The editing program used at PG Branding for bitmap and vector images is CorelDRAW.

EPS and PDF files
These are types of PostScript files which are designed primarily as files to preview artwork and not to print from. PostScript files consist of functions to describe and position lines, shapes, fills and other graphical elements, which means they can contain both bitmap and vector images. We will therefore find out the nature of the content upon opening the files and assess the suitability for printing.

Fonts and Typography

There are thousands of different fronts available for you to use in your artwork. However, if we don’t have the same font, when we open your artwork it will be substituted by an alternative one which could drastically change your design.

This can be avoided in three ways:
1. If you are submitting your artwork as a vector file, please ensure all fonts are converted to outlines. This avoids your font being substituted by another but still allows us to scale and edit your artwork as necessary.
2. If you have permission to do so, you could send us your font along with your artwork. Once we have the appropriate fonts we can then open your files without your artwork being altered.
3. If you cannot achieve either of the above, we can get the font ourselves (providing you know which one it is). This will incur an extra artwork charge. However, you can avoid this extra charge by purchasing the font for yourself, so you will have it for future use, and then sending it on to us.

Font Sizes
One of the main reasons why we may need to edit your text is to ensure that when your artwork is printed that the text will still be visible. This can be affected by the size and/or texture of the surface to be printed onto. For example, text printed onto jute bags needs to be as large as possible to prevent filling-in, while on pens the text will be very small so we suggest a minimum font size of 6pt.