Prepress

Live Area

June 8, 2015 | Request Samples

It is very important to build your print art file to the right specs. Double, even triple check the specs before hand. There’s nothing worse than spending a ton of time working on files that aren’t going to meet the printer’s requirements and that eventually have to be revised.

Printers usually give you three (3) main specs to be aware of: live area, trim line (aka die line or cut path), and bleed. This can be confusing at first, so we’ll breakdown the “live area” in this article.

The live area (or safe area) is the area on the graphic that most printers would like you to keep the vital art and lettering inside of. This is usually to make sure that it doesn’t get cropped off.

To meet our minimum requirements for screen printing and most digital printing jobs, any vital art and text need to be at least 1/8″ from the die line. Any graphic or text less than 1/8″ from die line is in the “live area”.

Which means anything in the live area is in danger in getting cut. This is due to our minimum tolerances of die cutting. If you’re okay with that then you can leave graphics in the live areas, but if you absolutely don’t want them to be cut, you’ll have to move them at least 1/8″ from the die line.

Email me here if you have any questions about pre-press or preparing art files for print.

Cheers!

Josh Cornett
josh@joshcornett.me

What Are Vector Graphics?

April 30, 2015 | Request Samples

Pre-press is an all important step in the print production process. It can be quite a headache if you don’t start with the correct file type for your graphic.

Vector Graphics are required for most print jobs because that can be manipulated and scaled without losing resolution or image quality.

Unlike JPEGs, GIFs, and BMP images, vector graphics are not made up of a grid of pixels. Instead, vector graphics are comprised of paths, which are defined by a start and end point, along with other points, curves, and angles along the way.

Because vector-based images are not made up of a specific number of dots, they can be scaled to a larger size and not lose any image quality. If you blow up a raster graphic, it will look blocky, or “pixelated.”

Most images you see on your computer screen are raster graphics. Pictures found on the Web and photos you import from your digital camera are raster graphics.

JPEG and GIF are the most common compressed image formats on the Web, but several other types of image compression are available.

Raster graphics can typically be scaled down with no loss of quality, but enlarging a bitmap image causes it to look blocky and “pixelated.” For this reason, vector graphics are often used for certain images, such as company logos, which need to be scaled to different sizes.

When you blow up a vector graphic, the edges of each object within the graphic stay smooth and clean.

This makes vector graphics ideal for logos, which can be small enough to appear on a business card, but can also be scaled to fill a billboard.

Vector graphics can come in the following file formats: PDF, .ai, .eps

If you have any questions or would like to learn more, please contact me here.

How to Choose the Right Ink for Outdoor Stickers

June 25, 2014 | Request Samples

Screen Printing is the most versatile of the commercial printing processes and choosing the right ink for Outdoor Stickers is important.

Screen printing covering a wide range of applications and substrates there are many factors to take into consideration when choosing an ink for a particular application. One ink cannot meet all the finishing requirements, for all end users, on all substrates.

Since we specialize in selling and producing stickers, window vinyl, floor graphics, and many other pressure sensitive vinyls, this article will look at the important factors about choosing the correct ink for these applications.

Pressure Sensitive Vinyl

Pressure sensitive vinyls have a Pressure-sensitive adhesive or PSA (self-adhesive, self-stick adhesive). This is an adhesive which forms bond when pressure is applied to marry the adhesive with the adherent. No solvent, water, or heat is needed to activate the adhesive.

It is used in pressure-sensitive tapes, stickers, labels, note pads, automobile trim, and a wide variety of other products. Usually these products have a liner, that when removed, reveals the adhesive.

Typically, the pressure sensitive vinyls that we produce require the product withstand outdoor durability or wear in tear, like in a retail environment.

It is critical that your printer offers a comprehensive selection of UV screen printing inks that excel in these environments.

We are dedicated to offering screen printing inks that help our customers achieve higher levels of economy and performance, along with special formulations to meet unique requirements and applications.

Outdoor Durability

For products like stickers and other pressures sensitive vinyls, we recommend a UV Screen Ink has been specifically designed for applications on pressure-sensitive decals.

For the best possible outcome, you need an ink that exhibits excellent exterior durability and chemical resistance. Generally speaking, our UV inks have an outdoor durability of 3+ years depending on color and if lamination is used.

Laminating a sticker increases the outdoor durability up to a few years.

Lighter colors like yellows and oranges tend to fade faster than darker colors. And with fluorescent colors, consider this your warning. Fluorescent colors fade quickly with outdoor exposure and are not recommended for outdoor durability.

Hold Up During Finishing

Another important characteristic is that the inks will uphold through all different types of finishing processes, including:

Digital cutting
Die cutting
Accept pre-mask for “die cut” stickers
React well with clear gloss coat
Lamination

We offer a variety of different finishing options when it comes to inks including:

Transparent inks
Matte finish
Clear gloss finish

These are all very important details when it’s important for your job to achieve a specific finished look.

Pantone Matching System

When choosing the right color for your custom print job, we refer to the Pantone Matching System or PMS. Also referred to as the Pantone color or Spot Color.

We provide FREE PMS Color matching. Just provide a PMS color code and we will be happy to provide a color swatch.

Printing Inks in the Right Order

For face up decals we print the inks in order from lightest color to darkest color. Conversely for face down decals we print inks from dark to light.

Quoting Your Job

To get the most accurate print quote, we need to determine how much ink will be used for a specific job. To do so we calculate the percentage of total ink coverage of each color.

This is a major factor in quoting your job.

I hope this article gives you more insight into the importance of choosing the right ink for the right application and material. If you have any further questions, please contact me here or fill out a quote request.

Happy Branding!

Create Production Ready Art Work In 4 Simple Steps

January 19, 2013 | Request Samples

“How do you create production ready art work?”

This is a very important thing to understand for a few reasons. Taking the time to understand a printer’s art specifications will save a tremendous amount of time and ensure that you get the best possible product in return.

When art specs are overlooked, valuable production time can be lost chasing down missing linked images, finding PMS codes, setting up art to scale, and adding or modifying die lines.

The back and forth from printer to designer is exhausting, time consuming and decreases the chances of hitting the all important deadline.

Create Production Ready Art Work In 4 Easy Steps

1. Provide high resolution vector output set up to scale. For most,.ai files are preferable. You need to set up with exact sizing and proportions. This is very important especially if you are printing a ‘gang run’ and there are multiple sizes of the same graphic. It is important to understand how the image will scale with several copies

2. Convert all text to outlines. If you don’t know how to do this search “convert text to outlines in illustrator” in Google.

3. Create a cut path with at least 1/8″ from edge of graphic to die line. This shows the screen printer exactly how the graphic is to be cut. As there are many different ways to shave your cat, there are an infinite number of ways a graphic can be cut. Make sure you get exactly what you want by providing your own cut path.

4. If you are calling out specific “spot” colors, you must provide PMS codes for ALL spot colors. This saves you, the printer, and artist a lot of time and avoids confusion. If you don’t know what PMS codes are — google it. Having your screen-printer try and color match is a waste of time. Printers are printers, designers are designers.

If you follow these four simple steps, your printer will love working with you — and you will get your projects back faster than ever before!

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