Please read and follow these DIY Artwork guidelines when supplying your own artwork for printing.

QUICK SUMMARY (for designers) PDF format preferred 92 x 60mm inc 3mm bleed CMYK colour 300dpi resolution minimum Fonts converted to outlines or flattened

DIY ARTWORK (for the rest of us)

Welcome to the DIY Design Guidelines. Please read and follow these guidelines carefully so that your printing will print without any nasty surprises.


FILE FORMAT

Saltprint will accept a range of file formats for printing. These formats include PDF, JPG, TIF, BMP, PSD, EPS, AI. We also accept Word DOC files, Publisher PUB files, and Powerpoint PPT files.

Download these program templates for free:

(Right-mouse-click the links below and select "Save Target As")

	Adobe Photoshop Business Card
	Adobe Illustrator Business Card
	Microsoft Powerpoint Business Card
	Microsoft Publisher Business Card
	Microsoft Word Business Card

BUSINESS CARD ARTWORK SIZE

92mmx60mm (inc 3mm bleed)

The finished size of your business cards will be 86mmx54mm after the 3mm bleed is trimmed off.

ARTWORK BLEEDS (IMPORTANT!)

Your artwork needs to be a certain size to print correctly. For business cards it is 92mmx60mm. Part of this size is what we call the “bleed” which will be trimmed off. The bleed area is 3mm on each side.

In addition to the bleed area outside the cut line, we strongly recommend making another internal margin as the cut line can vary in location.

1.1 The dotted line here represents where the bleed area will be trimmed off. Do not put any important information in the bleed area, or near the bleed area as it may be trimmed off.

1.2 Important information can't be placed too close to the bleed area like this example. We suggest leaving another 3mm internal margin.

1.3 The background colour or image must continue into the bleed area, otherwise an uneven white border may appear around the finished print.

RESOLUTION

Images such as photos in your artwork must have a minimum resolution of 300dpi (dots per inch). Images that have a lower resolution may print pixelated or fuzzy.

Images taken from the internet often have a resolution of only 72dpi and will very rarely print very well.



CORRECT COLOUR

Offset printing uses a CMYK colour format (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black). The colours on your screen are RGB colours (Red, Green, Blue).

Some RGB colours that appear on your screen can not be printed in CMYK. You must be careful when selecting colours on your printing, as some colours will print “dull” when compared to your computer screen.

In the diagram below, the colours on top are RGB colours as you seen on your computer screen. When printed in CMYK, they would appear as the colours on the bottom, slightly duller.

Programs such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator can convert all colours to CMYK. Programs such as Microsoft Word can not, so you must manually select colours which are not at risk.

FONTS

Fonts in your artwork need to be “converted to outlines” or “flattened” into a graphic. This will eliminate the chance of fonts not displaying correctly and not printing the way you intended.

If you are using a program such as Microsoft Word, it is difficult to convert your fonts to graphics. There are a couple of answers to this problem, both of which are still not imune to fonts problems. Firstly you may choose to select only common fonts such as “Arial” and “Times New Roman” .

Secondly you can "embed" fonts:

In Microsoft Word and Powerpoint, go to the menu “Tools > Options > Save tab” and select “Embed TrueTypeFonts”.

This option is available in Microsoft Publisher under the menu “Tools > Commercial Printing Tools > Fonts”.

You have now completed the Design Guidelines. Please view our Printing Terms & Conditions. Click Here to read them in easy-to-read English.

TOO COMPLICATED?
GET SALTPRINT TO DESIGN IT FOR YOU

Let our creative team of designers at saltprint create a design for you that will impress your clients. See what we can do here.