Artwork Guidelines

Quick Checklist

• PDF exported at print quality, one page per side.
• Cut size plus 3 mm bleed on every edge, so 85 × 55 mm business cards are supplied at 91 × 61 mm.
• Text and logos 3 mm inside the cut line.
• 300 dpi images at the printed size; 150 dpi is enough for banners and posters.
• CMYK colour, fonts embedded or converted to outlines.
• No crop marks, guides or template layers left in the file. Canva is the one exception: its Crop marks and bleed download is how it adds the bleed, and the uploader leaves the marks out.

File Types

Limits per upload: MB per file, pages, files. Password-protected PDFs cannot be read, so remove the password first.

Bleed, Cut Line and Safe Area

So a design is always made at the cut size plus 6 mm overall: 3 mm on every side. If your file is supplied at the cut size with no bleed, the uploader can add it by mirroring the edges, stretching them, extending a flat colour or slightly enlarging the design, and shows you which looks best.

Sizes by Product

Large-format artwork can be built at 50% or 25% scale to keep files small: say so in your order notes and we scale it back up. Resolution should then be 300 dpi at the reduced size.

Resolution

Resolution is measured at the printed size, not the file's own dimensions. A 1000-pixel-wide image is 300 dpi on a business card and 25 dpi on a banner.

Vector artwork (logos and text made in Illustrator, InDesign, Affinity or Canva and exported as PDF) has no resolution limit and prints sharp at any size. Enlarging a small image in your design software does not add detail: ask for the original from the photographer or designer instead.

Colour

Screens mix light (RGB), presses mix ink (CMYK). Bright blues, greens and oranges on screen print a little duller. For predictable colour, design in CMYK or convert before exporting. RGB files still print: we convert them on the press and the uploader warns you where the shift will be most visible.

• Rich black for large black areas: C60 M40 Y40 K100. For body text use plain K100 so it stays crisp.
• Total ink below 300% to avoid wet, slow-drying print.
• Pantone references are matched as closely as four-colour print allows unless you have ordered a spot-colour product.
• Remove overprint settings unless you mean them: a white logo set to overprint disappears.

Fonts and Text

• Embed all fonts when exporting, or convert text to outlines or curves. The uploader checks this and tells you if a font is missing.
• Minimum sizes: 6 pt for body text in black, 8 pt for coloured or reversed-out text, 0.25 pt for thin lines.
• Check spelling, phone numbers, dates and prices before you upload. The pre-print check looks at how the file prints, never at what it says.

Double-Sided and Booklets

• Supply double-sided work as a two-page PDF, front then back, both the same way up. The uploader shows both sides on the proof.
• Booklets: one PDF with single pages in reading order, the front cover first. Page counts must divide by 4 for stapled booklets. Do not supply printer spreads.
• Different designs in one order (for example five business card names): one file per design, uploaded together, and choose the number of designs on the product page.

The Pre-Print Check

Every upload goes through the same ten-point check in your browser, before anything reaches us:

1. File opens cleanly
2. Page size against the product
3. Orientation
4. Bleed present or added
5. Safe area
6. Resolution at print size
7. Fonts embedded
8. Colour mode
9. Page count
10. Print-ready file produced

You then see a live proof with the cut line and safe area drawn on, choose how the design sits if the shape differs, confirm the points that matter and approve. A print-ready PDF is made from your approval and the job is queued. That is the whole check: automatic and technical. It does not read your wording, names, phone numbers, addresses or dates, and it does not make low-resolution pictures sharper. Those are yours to check, and what you approve is exactly what prints.

Templates

Each product page has an Artwork Templates section with downloadable layouts for popular design applications, sized with bleed and safe area already drawn on guide layers. Open the product you are ordering, scroll to Product Details and choose your application. Delete the guide layers before you export.

Build a Template for Any Size Browse Products for Templates

Folded Leaflets: Panels and Folds

A folded leaflet is one flat sheet with fold lines. Design it flat, outside on one page and inside on the other, and keep every panel's content inside its own safe area so nothing crosses a fold. The panel that folds inside is 2 to 3 mm narrower on a roll fold and a gate fold; a Z fold has three equal panels. Download the template for the fold you ordered and the panels are already drawn.

• Half fold A4: two panels of 148.5 mm. Front cover is the right-hand panel of the outside page.
• Roll fold A4 to DL: outside panels 97, 100, 100 mm from the left; inside 100, 100, 97 mm.
• Z fold A4 to DL: three panels of 99 mm, no tuck.
• Gate fold: two outer flaps of 1 mm less than half the centre panel.

Large Format: Banners, Posters and Signs

Big print follows the same rules with two differences. First, resolution: a banner is read from metres away, so 100 to 150 dpi at the finished size is plenty, and vector logos and text do not need resolution at all. Second, scale: design at the finished size, or at exactly 50% or 25% and tell us in the notes; the uploader scales in proportion and says so in the check.

• Bleed: PVC and mesh banners carry 25 mm bleed; keep text 36 mm clear of the edges where the hems and eyelets go. Flags carry 25 mm bleed and a 30 mm safe area.
• Roller banners: supply the visible area (800 × 2000 mm on a standard banner) plus 3 mm bleed; nothing extra for the cassette, we add it. Keep the bottom 100 mm to background only and the main message in the top two thirds.
• Rigid signs and boards: 3 mm bleed, corners are cut square unless you ask for rounded.
• Stickers cut to shape: include the cut path as a separate spot colour named CutContour, or ask us to set up the cutting for you (the product page shows any set-up charge).

Spot UV and Foil

Raised spot UV (a clear gloss you can feel) and gold or silver foil are added after printing, on laminated card, and only where a separate finish layer says so. Choose the finish on the product page first. In our online designer the Finishes tool makes the layer for you: tap what should shine, pick pieces from your layers, choose a colour, add a gloss panel or upload a black and white layer. If you send your own files, add one layer page for each finish on each side, after the artwork pages.

• One solid colour where the finish goes, 100% black (C0 M0 Y0 K100) or 100% magenta (C0 M100 Y0 K0), and white everywhere else. No greys, tints, gradients, transparency, shadows or effects: the finish is either there or it is not.
• Vector shapes only, never a JPEG or another picture, at the same size as the artwork, 3 mm bleed included, with every shape copied into exactly the same place.
• Page order: the printed front, the printed back, then the finish layer for the front and the one for the back, foil before spot UV, for example 3 Front Gold Foil, 4 Front Spot UV, 5 Back Spot UV. Separate files are fine too, named front, back, gold-foil-front, spot-uv-front.
• Fine detail: lines of 1 pt (0.35 mm) or more and text of 8 pt or more (10 pt for fine serif fonts), spot UV on less than 25% of the page, and we recommend 1 mm between raised areas and 0.5 mm between foiled ones.
• Under the foil: foil goes on after printing and cannot be printed over, so nothing prints directly under it; the background can stay. Our designer and our upload check take it out for you unless you choose Print Colour Under the Foil.
• Edges and folds: keep finishes 3 mm inside the cut line and 3 mm either side of a fold, and allow up to 0.5 mm of movement between the finish and the print.
• Sides: spot UV can go on the front or on both sides (both sides needs lamination on both sides); foil goes on the front.
• White ink on clear labels and stickers: clear film has no white of its own, so colours look thin and see-through unless white is printed underneath. Choose the clear material on the product page, then make the white layer the same way: solid black where white should print, nothing where the film should stay clear, on its own layer or page named White. Keep it a hair smaller than the colours above it so no white rim shows at the edge. White text and white shapes need white ink too, so mark them on the layer.

Export Settings by App

The Sixty-Second Check Before You Upload

• Open the PDF and zoom to 100%: is every photo sharp?
• Check the page size in the PDF reader: finished size plus 6 mm each way?
• Spelling, phone numbers, prices, dates, web address: read them backwards.
• Is anything important within 3 mm of the edge?
• Two-sided: is the back the right way up and the right way round?
• Rich black for big black areas (60, 40, 40, 100), plain black for text.
• No crop marks, template guides or hidden layers left on.

Common Mistakes We See Every Week

• Text sitting right on the edge, lost to the trim. Keep it 3 mm in.
• A design at the cut size with a white border added in the software "to be safe": the border prints.
• Screenshots and web images, 72 dpi, that print blurred.
• A portrait design ordered as a landscape product, or the other way round. The uploader turns the product to suit where it can, and tells you.
• Template guides, or crop marks drawn into the design itself, left visible: they print too.
• A PDF exported with the "smallest file size" preset, which compresses the images.