Guidelines For Submitting Source Artwork
| The source artwork that you submit will be used to create the imprint on the product that you have ordered. Quality source artwork is essential for producing an accurate reproduction of your logo. Poor quality source artwork may result in production delays or increased cost for cleaning up the artwork. The following set of guidelines will assist you in gathering quality source artwork. |
Electronic Source Artwork
| A high quality copy of your artwork or logo in an electronic file formate is the preferred way of submitting electronic artwork. Electronic artwork is divided into two distinct types, vectored art and bitmaps. Vector artwork is compsed of lines that have been created in an illustration program such as Coreldraw, Illustrator or Freehand. Bitmap artwork is composed of pixels that have been created in a desktop publishing program, photo editing program or through the scanning process. Vector art is preferred because it can be easily manipulated and sized without any loss of quality. Bitmap artwork can not be easily manipulated and will result in a significant loss of quality when it is resized. Many imprinting processes will require that bitmap artwork is converted to vector artwork prior to production. This is a time consuming and labor intensive process. In some cases, your printer or design agency will have a copy of your logo in a vector or bitmap format. You can forward this document to your printer or design firm to instruct them how to submit artwork. The artwork can be saved on a Mac or Windows computer, provided it is saved in EPS, BMP, TIFF or WMF format. Electronic source artwork can be submitted by attaching the file to an e-mail to info@Cudos2u.com. |
Submitting Vectored Artwork
| If you have artwork that was created in CorelDraw, Adobe Illustrator or Macromedia Freehand, it is more than likely vectored artwork. In general, all text in the artwork must be converted to outlines (curves) in CorelDraw, Illustrator or Freehand to avoid problems with fonts. The preferred format for submitting vectored art is EPS (Encapsulated PostScript). |
Submitting Hard Copy Source Artwork
| When high quality electronic artwork is not available, it is best to submit hard copy source artwork on printed paper. Hard copy source artwork should be no smaller than 2" in width or height on a plain white background. Black and white artwork preffered. Business cards are typically the worst source of hard copy artwork as the logo is often small and not printed clearly. |
Source Artwork Quality Factors
| Each imprinting process has a unique production requirement. In general,the artwork must be converted to a high quaility vector image or high resolution bitmap (300 dpi or greater). The initial quality of your electronic or hard copy artwork will determine the amount of production time required to convert your logo. Artwork conversion and clean up is expense. You can decrease both your turn-around timeand up-front cost by obtaining high quality electronic artwork or hard copy. The following section will help you to evaluate the quality of your source artwork. Take a close look at your sourceartwork, this is the best it will ever look without modification and cleanup. There is no magical process that will automatically clean up or fix poor quality artwork. Only human intervention in a vector illustration program such as CorelDraw or Adobe Illustrator can fix or clean up bad source artwork. |
Overall Size - Bigger is Better
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No smaller than 2" height or width |
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Bigger is better, but no larger than 8.5" by 11" |
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Text Size - No Smaller than 1/2
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The smallest text element should be no less than 1/2" in height |
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Text elements under 1/2" in height will have to be redrawn or type set |
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Contrast and Colors - B & W is Best
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Easily defined contrast between each color in the image |
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Black and White artwork is the best |
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White or solid off-white background color is preferred |
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Colored artwork is acceptable provided there is solid colors and distinct contrast between the colors |
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Edge Definition - No Jagged Edges
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No jagged edges upon close inspection of the image |
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Crisp clean edges without fuzzy appearance |
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Halftones or Gradients - Solid Colors
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No Shaded areas (gradients) or dot patterns (half tones) |
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Solid colors in each elements in the image |
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Source Artwork Readiness Index
| The following index will help you to estimate the art production time required to recreate or cleanup a logo that you submit |
A vector artwork logo that may be directly output to a production process without any modifications. The quality factors for image size, text size, contrast, edge definition, gradients and halftones have all been met. The logo may be directly output to a production process without any modifications. In the case of a production process requiring vector artwork, the logo can be converted to vectored artwork using a tracing program without redrawing in an illustration program. The quality factors for image size, text size, contrast, edge definition for gradients / halftones have been met. The vector artwork logo can not be directly output to a production process without significant modification. In the case of vectored artwork, the image must be partially redrawn or type set using a vector illustration program. One or more of the quality factors for image size, text size, contrast, edge definition, gradients and halftones have not been met. The logo can not be directly output to a production process without being redrawn. More than one of the quality factors for image size, text size, contrast, edge definition, gradients and halftones have not been met. |
Recommended Formats for Submitting Electronic Artwork