Contact Us
Please do not send any unsolicited artwork or design instructions before you have spoken to, or received an e-mail response from our sales department. We would normally delete such e-mails without opening.
Print Ready Artwork
When we quote a price to you, it does not include the cost of the design. We normally expect customers to provide us with print ready artwork, or a single graphic image, a logo, to place in one of our templates.
"Print ready artwork" means artwork which can be loaded onto printing machines, without any redesign or manipulation by our inhouse designers. If your artwork is received requiring any complex redesign there will be an additonal charge.
We have a full range of templates as PDF and CS2/3 which can be supplied on request.
Unable to provide finished artwork
If you are unable to produce artwork to the formats required, and would like us to create a design for you, please contact our sales team for advice. There is a charge for this service : Scroll down the page for information about how your can provide us with a Design Brief.
Proofing
As an essential part of our quality systems. we will send you a proof of your design, and ask to sign off as correct : Your signature is an acceptance that the artwork is correct and any remaining errors, spellings, colours, layering, are your responsibility.
Advice for Professional Designers
Graphic Formats
We prefer to receive artwork, complete as a scaleable vector file, within our standard templates. If you are designing in Adobe Illustrator we prefer raw *ai files.: Hi-res PDFs are acceptable, but please do not compress multiple designs into a single PDF.
We often have difficulties where artwork has been prepared using software such as Freehand, Corel Draw, Quark. and Adobe In-Design : If your using software other than Adobe Illustrator to create your design, please supply it as a scaleable *.EPS or Hi-Res *.PDF.
Text
Where your artwork includes text, please convert fonts to outlines/curves or provide the font.
Colour Matching
Colours should be defined as CMYK or Pantone.
CMYK will be printed as found and we will do our best to match any Pantone colour references, but there are limitations as to the colours printing machines are able to print. Where an accurate pantone match is critical, please supply a colour sample, preferably on fabric : If do not have a sample on fabric, we shall be happy to supply a small print of the requested colour. There may a be a charge for this service.
It is difficult, sometimes impossible to match the RGB colours of raster graphic, for example a photo/ logo, with the CMYK of the background, even though the colour formulas would appear to be the same. Please bear this in mind when creating your design.
Pantone Colour Books
When specifying pantones use Solid Uncoated (U) or Solid Coated ( C) colour references rather than Process, or other pantone colour book . Please do not send artwork as *CVC or customised pantones.: If your artwork contains CVC or custom pantones it will be returned for amendment.
Layering
Think carefully how your graphics are layered : Layering raster (bitmaps) on top of vector background layers may look fine on the screen, but our software can not always interpret them correctly and faults, which we cannot correct sometimes occur. Please ensure that your layering is contructed such that raster layers( photos, PSD,Tiffs) are not above vector drawn background layers.
Full Flood
Please contact us early in the design process if you are planning to submit the whole design as a raster (PSD /TiFF) image or it includes a full 100% image, eg photograph as a background. We are happy to accept this format, but to create a quality design requires very large, exceptionally sharp, and high resolution images. We often receive such poor quality photographs that we have to advise that they are not good enough for printing.
JPEG Images Please avoid using highly compressed JPEG. The compression algorithm usually introduces visible lines around adjacent colours, know as "artefacts" as to be highly visible and distracting as to spoil the whole design: Photoshop PSD, or TIFF is the preferred format. However, a high quality, sharp, low compresion JPEG can sometimes work extremely well.
Raster Images Size Resolution
If your artwork includes raster graphic images, logos, please do not embed, but place, and always supply any bitmaps as additional files. If there is a problem with the bitmap our designers can try to solve it, but only if it is supplied as separate file.. Please ensure that they are of sufficient size and resolution for scaling to the size of the flag. ie 50% of the final printing size and 300 dp minimum resolution.
PNG/ GIF/ MSWord
Please do not supply artwork as PNG or GIF files : These are only suitable for the design of web pages.
We cannot accept MSWord Graphics for printing.
Design Brief
If you do not have access to professional design software you can provide us with a written brief and/or a simple sketch and any other printed design, indicating the shapes, colours, text and your suggestions for layout.
We shall also be happy to accept a bitmaps, JPG, TFF, PSD, MSWord as part of a your design brief, from which we can produce a final drawing for you in a scaleable vector format.
Once completed we will send you a proof copy for comment and approval. Your will have the chance of amend and change our design. There is a charge for this service.