Formats: We accept files in all major design applications - Illustrator, Freehand, Photoshop, InDesign and Quark Xpress. Files done in Word, Excel or PowerPoint are not acceptable for this type of work and cannot be used. Single panel displays like retractable banner stands can be designed in any of the formats, but Illustrator is the most popular. Multi-panel displays like our line of pop-up displays need to be created in page layout programs like InDesign and Quark XPress because they allow you to design a six panel display as a six page spread, allowing text and graphics to span the entire display. We can supply blank templates for these programs. These programs would also allow all text and vector graphics to print at 600 dpi and the raster (photo) files would print at their native resolution. Keep in mind that a low resolution raster file placed in Illustrator does not make it vector art that can be scaled upward - the photo image retains its raster file status and native resolution. Both Illustrator and InDesign allow you to convert your type to outlines which eliminates any possibility of type problems - we highly recommend you do this!

Ready-to-Print art: All our prices assume being supplied with properly prepared art that is ready to print. This means the files require no intervention on our part in order to print them. All files should be set up to the correct size for the product being ordered. Artwork in the middle of an 8-1/2" x 11" Illustrator document is not considered ready to print! The document should be the size of the display (or 1/2 or 1/4 scale) and contain nothing other than the art being printed. Artwork that is not ready to print will incur a $65 per hour art charge if the art can be made ready to print. The set-up is not a charge to design the display - only to make an existing design ready to print by correcting sizes and aspect ratios, color modes, and font issues.

Raster files and resolution - our process does not need extremely high resolution files. 100dpi at the output size works just fine - but that is still a large file, a little over 70mb in RGB, almost 94mb in CMYK for an average banner stand file. In a lot of cases we can even drop down to 72dpi without probelms. The most frequent comment we hear is "I have a 300dpi file, it will work fine." That statement is the same as someone saying their car gets "30 miles" rather than "30 miles per gallon". A raster file is 300 dpi at a certain size, if you increase the size of the image, the resolution goes down in proportion to the increase in print size. For example, say you have a color photo image that is 8"x10" at 300dpi. It's a fairly large image at 27.5mb in CMYK color. But, when you enlarge that image to 80" tall to fit one of our banner stands, the resolution drops to 37.5 dpi! That same file would make an excellent 24" x 30" photo element in the design of a bannerstand graphic - just not an entire background image. One more thing - we are talking about original, native resolution. The original digital camera file or scan, not one that has been scaled up in Photoshop (interpolated). Photoshop interpolation only works for a small enlargement - you cannot take a small file and make a large one that will look good by this process. There are custom programs like Genuine Fractals that do a much better job than Photoshop - but they still need to start with a fairly high quality file to acheive any real success. While it is possible for us the verify the resolution of a file, we have no way of knowing if a file has been interpolated to an artificially high resolution until the file has been printed. At that point you will incur additional costs to re-print the graphics with the proper art. All this is not meant to say we cannot print display files that are not huge custom files - we have actually output 10'x 8' backwalls with image resolutions around 40 dpi. As long as these are designed in Illustrator, InDesign or Quark, the type and vector art will print at 600dpi - only the image will be low resolution, and from a normal viewing distance for these large displays, it may be acceptable.

Designing in Photoshop - Some designers like to build the whole layout in Photoshop. This gives them type effects and layout designs that can't be done with other programs. The only problem with this type of design is that very small type would not be as sharp. This is because of the size of these panels you probably will not be able to build a 300dpi file - we suggest 100-150 dpi (and they will still be large files).

General Requirements - each product has different size specs. Be sure you have the right size for your product - this is especially true with our line of retractable banner stands as each on is different. On each product page of banner stands you will find a PDF that contains the specs for that particular stand. Because of the tight tolerances in the multi-panel pop-up displays, we can supply blank templates in Quark Xpress or Adobe InDesign. We suggest setting up files at 1/2 or 1/4 scale - no smaller than 1/4 though. If designing at 1/4 scale, images should be at 350-400 dpi so when they are enlarged 400% they will have enough resolution. If you have type in a vector art file, convert it to outlines to avoid missing font problems. Besure to send all supporting files and complete font sets. We output from a Mac - if you are designing on a PC be sure to use fonts that are available for both systems or convert all fonts to outlines.

PANTONE Colors - The PANTONE system was was originaly designed as way for designers to specify a spot color and the printer would know exactly what that color was - he just ordered that color ink from his ink supplier. That was before digital printing and the wide use of process colors to print everything. Problem is, about 50% of the solid Pantone colors cannot be reproduced accurately in a process build (using the 4 CMYK colors). We use a 6 color system (CMYKLmLc) that expands our color range, but still does not solve this problem completely. If color matching is important you will need to do two things:

1. When designing your graphics use a Pantone Color Bridge. This product is a guide to "bridge" the gap between solid, process and web color reproduction. The guide will show a solid Pantone color swatch and its 4 color counterpart side by side. Using this guide will give you a very good idea of what your PMS color will look like in a 4 color process - you may be surprised at the differencees in some of the colors!

2. Order a proof - we can take the same file and print it on 4 different materials and get 4 slightly different treatments of color. The Bridge will get you close, but if color matching is critical for branding or other purpose, this is the only way to be sure is to print a sample on the actual material being used. A hard copy proof is $60 which includes Next Day Air shipping for the proof. PDF proofs are free but may not show a particular color accurately.

The Pantone Color Bridge is available at most art supply stores, many web sites and from Pantone http://www.pantone.com

Sending artwork - you may burn them to CD or DVD-R or use our web-based upload page located HERE. There is also FTP info located there.