Artwork Guidelines

Artwork
Submitted artwork should be production ready, at the desired imprint size. Artwork that is not production ready will be corrected at a charge of $70.00 per hour. No charge is made for corrections completed in less than 30 minutes. Please read our guidelines carefully before submitting artwork.

We also accept: PDF, EPS, and TIFF files.
JPEG, GIF, and PNG are not considered production ready.

Guidelines

• One-color designs should be high-contrast compositions and accurately sized.
• Vector artwork should be created in Illustrator or Freehand. If artwork is scanned, use a 1,000 dpi resolution or higher for line art.
• Photographic images should be created in Photoshop, using a 300 dpi resolution or higher.
• As a general rule, higher resolution images are better – 72 dpi images cannot be used for printing.
• Save your artwork in the native file format used by your application.
• Fonts must be 8 points or larger.
• We prefer you to send all actual fonts used, but we will accept fonts that are converted into outlines using Illustrator.
• Use the appropriate PMS palette for spot color artwork.
• Plastic products: use the coated palette.
• Paper products: use the uncoated palette.
Do not build spot color artwork with the CMYK palette. This will incur additional art time to correct colors.
• Send all images and fonts used for your design.

Mechanical Artwork
We accept mechanical artwork. Send high-contrast compositions that are sized accurately.

Submitting Artwork
We accept artwork by postal mail, email or online artwork transfer form. Emailed artwork must be less than 10mb. Please include the following information with your artwork:

• Company Name
• Contact Name
• Phone Number
• P.O. Number
• Product Part #
• Imprint Size

Use our online artwork transfer form to expedite production and help us better manage your artwork. You can access it at http://www.noteworthy.com/artwork.

Artwork Charges
We bill $70.00 per hour to correct artwork that is not production ready. Corrections completed in less than 30 minutes will not be billed. Authorization is not sought on artwork charges of $70.00 or less, unless specifically requested. There is a $25.00 (net) charge for changes in artwork or copy once an order is typeset and ready for production.

Plastic Printing Information
The process we use to print on plastic is called flexography. This printing method passes ink from polymer plate onto plastic film. The pressure of the plate on the plastic film creates what is known as a “stretch factor.” This causes limitations with print registration explained below.

Registration:
Registration refers to the alignment of different colored inks as they are applied to a substrate. Perfect registration is when inks are aligned perfectly to produce a desired design. The “stretch factor” when printing on plastic makes exact alignment impossible to obtain. To correct this limitation we can:

1. Create a “trap” where we barely overlap two colors. The colors have a 1/16 inch overlap leaving a slight third color.
2. Create a “white-well” where we leave a 1/16” gap between two colors. This allows the color to “float” to compensate for the stretch factor.
   

Traps:
Due to properties of certain colors traps sometimes cause a very distinct and noticeable third color. If this is a concern we recommend a digital color proof.

For example: Blue & Yellow = Green Red & blue = Purple

Screens:
A 55 or 65 line screen is required for flexographic printing. A 10% to 60% screen is acceptable, anything out of this range may negatively affect print quality.

Halftones:
Toned artwork, such as photographs, must be given a dot size image known as a halftone. The more contrast between highlights and shadows there are in a photo, the better the halftone will be and therefore the better it will print on the product.

Catalog Pictures
Products and logos shown in this catalog appear only to illustrate the basic products and the ability to include messages and art on them, but are never intended to suggest that the imprints are readily available to any purchaser without the permission of the owners of the trademark, copyright, art or copy.