Art Guidelines

If you need an original design, or you have an image that needs to be redrawn, we would be happy to help. Our Art Department is very adept in creating high quality graphic design in numerous styles, and in a timely manner (you can view a sampling of our work here).

All of our graphic design work is billed at a rate of $25 an hour. If you already have pre-existing art, and you wish to avoid art charges, you will need to make sure that your art meets our criteria.

If, after reading the following section, you are unsure whether your art meets our requirements, please feel free to email your graphic files here. All artwork consultations, via email, or in person, are free of charge.

Art Requirements

There are basically two types of graphics files that we accept:

The first type are Vector graphics files, which are created using software programs such as Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw and Macromedia Freehand.

The second type, and the type that most people are more familiar with, are called Raster (or bitmap) graphics files. Files created in software programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, as well as digital photographs, are Raster files.

The image below shows the same detail blown up 300% to show the difference between Vector and Raster graphics.

You can learn more about the difference between Vector and Raster graphics here, here and here.

Vector Graphics

(.ai, .fh, .eps)

All text should be converted to outlines.
All colors should be converted to Spot colors, preferably with Pantone (PMS) colors. Doing so will ensure that your art is printed correctly, with the exact colors that you desire.
Any Raster images linked (placed) in the document need to meet our Raster Graphics requirements.

Raster Graphics (.tif, .psd, .png)

The resolution of image must be at least 300ppi (pixels per inch).
The size of the image should be at least 100% of the intended print size.
If possible, avoid sending art in JPEG or GIF formats. While these types of files are great for web graphics, they are digitally compressed, and as a result, are usually not of a high enough quality for printing.
Certain types of graphics, such as logos with multiple colors, should not be created as Raster graphics. We can recreate these types of files as Vector graphics for you.

Files Formats

The following is a list of file formats that we can accept: