Graphic Design

For many of our customers, the absence of an in-house designer or illustrator poses a significant challenge when it comes to creating the necessary images for their printing requirements. This hurdle often arises when ensuring that images meet the correct resolution, color composition, or file formatting standards essential for printing. Fortunately, this is a challenge we are equipped to address. Leveraging our extensive experience and the expertise of our trained team members, we offer a solution to bridge these skill or knowledge gaps. Whether it's recreating artwork with insufficient resolution for clear prints or optimizing artwork layout to better suit manufactured parts, we've encountered and resolved a multitude of issues over the years. So, if your business lacks the necessary know-how, rest assured, we've got you covered. Don't let these obstacles discourage you— we're here to help every step of the way!

What Can You Do to Help This Process

We always ask anyone we are working with, if possible, to send their artwork as one of two file types, .ai and/or .eps.

Why Do We Ask For Your Artwork in .AI or .EPS Format?

When printing your chosen artwork or design on your part, no matter the method, we always start with a digital version of the artwork. To ensure your print is as clear as possible we use a type of image file called a vector file. The formats that we ask for are just this, vector files. Other more common image file types (i.e. .JPG, .BMP, .GIF, etc.) are raster type files.

What is a Vector File?

A vector file uses mathematical equations, lines, and curves based on a grid to create an image. Using these the vector file also saves the information for color, line thickness, and shapes. Since a vector uses these equations when resizing a vector to a larger or smaller size it can recalculate the math to keep the quality of the image unaffected at any of those sizes.

What is a Raster File?

Raster images are built up of tiny squares of different colors, these are called pixels. The more pixels an image has the better the quality of the image. Different file types dictate the number of pixels the image can have.

The Differences Between Vector and Raster

The main difference between the two in relation to how we use your artwork is how they handle resolution. For a Raster to translate into a high-quality print it has to have a high resolution which is determined by the DPI or PPI. This stand for "Dots Per Inch" or "Pixels Per Inch" respectively. This is just as it sounds, the amount of pixels found within one inch of an image. For a high-quality print, you want a PPI of at least 300. Most images that you see on your various devices have a set PPI of 72 since you are just looking at them on a screen. This can be an issue when taking an image you might have found online and wanting to use it for printing if it is in a raster file format. When trying to resize such an image it can become blurry or pixelated which would translate to the prints.

When it comes to vectors, they do not have this issue. As stated above, vectors use equations to create the images and these equations can be recalculated every time you resize the image. This ensures a high-quality print ready image no matter the size or application.

This difference is why we ask for the specific file types that we do for your artwork. We want to be able to provide you the highest quality printing possible.