Design & Artwork

Design

There’s no need for you to find a designer or agonise over all the technical specs. Our design service is here to bring your ideas to life.

We’ll quickly take your ideas and create work that delivers results. If you're unsure about what direction to take or don’t know where to start, we can offer suggestions to get the ball rolling. We can even take it from a blank sheet to the finished product if that’s what you need.

Best of all, because everything is done in-house, we can guarantee your product will print exactly how you want it. If there are any mistakes, we’ll fix them.

Plus, our team is highly tuned with your deadlines and weekly marketing expectations. All work is undertaken with a clear understanding of your needs and timing requirements.

You can work with us via email or, if you're in the area, come in and sit down with one of our designers.

To get started, call us on 0800 280-000 or email sales1@theprintcompany.co.nz or sales2@theprintcompany.co.nz

Guide for Suppling Artwork

This guide outlines issues you’ll need to consider when supplying artwork so as to avoid delays and ensure great quality print.

File formats

Regardless of what software is used to create your artwork, your final artwork file should be exported to a print-ready file format at an appropriate size, in the correct colour mode and featuring sufficient bleed area around the edge.

File size

If for any reason you find you’re unable to upload your file, you can call our Design Team on 0800 280 000 who’ll be able to diagnose the issue or organise an alternative way for you to supply your file. It’s also important that your file is not too small. An image that appears fine on screen may lose quality when printed full size. Read our RESOLUTION GUIDE for information on how to ensure your image quality is up to spec.

PDFs

We request all our artwork to be supplied as high resolution (300dpi). It is important that you prepare your PDF file in the correct way. These options must be set for commercial printing:

Resolution - Choose High Resolution

Compression Settings - For colour and greyscale this should be downsampled to 300dpi with "auto compression" set on high

Font Embedding - Should be set to "embed all fonts"

Colour needs to be set as CMYK not RGB (RGB artwork will be converted to CMYK and this could affect your colours.

The colour profile needs to be set to FOGRA39.

Photoshop

Set Resolution to 300dpi when starting your new document. Save the file as either TIFF or JPEG.

Other files not listed above must be saved either as an EPS or JPEG.

If you need us to make changes to your file (JPEG / EPS)

we will require you to re-supply new artwork as either a PSD

PDF or AI file as we are unable to make changes to flattened images (JPEG / EPS / TIFF).

Illustrator

Include all embedded images and convert all text to curves. Save as an EPS file.

InDesign

Please ensure all fonts and pictures used in your artwork are supplied to us in a separate folder using the "package" function under the "file" menu. Use a compression tool such as Stuffit or WinZip before uploading your order or sending it via e-mail.

Please include a PDF to allow us to check that no elements are been moved or omitted in the final artwork. Please be aware

this additional proofing task can occasionally delay delivery.

Microsoft Documents

Unfortunately, we’re unable to use the following formats for printing:

As these applications aren’t designed to prepare print-ready artwork, we recommend you avoid them in favour of dedicated design software.

However, if you’re unable to create your artwork in any other program, it is possible to convert your Microsoft document from the proprietary file format into a print-ready PDF.

Colour

Any artwork that’s intended for print should be created in (or converted to) CMYK – not RGB. That’s because CMYK files achieve colours by mixing Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key (Black) in the same way that printers mix inks to achieve colours on the page.

Trimming

Artwork Bleed

It is essential that there is a minimum 3mm bleed around your artwork to account for very slight variances during the trimming process.

For example, an A6 size product is 148 x 105 mm.

In order to supply artwork for this product, your file would need to be 154 x 111 mm

Any background colours or designs would need to extend right to the edge.

Crop marks

Adding crop marks to your artwork is not necessary. If you have experience designing for print, by all means, add them as correctly placed crop marks can save time and help us align your design.

However, as long as the artwork is supplied at the correct dimensions with a 3mm bleed on all sides, we’ll be able to set it up for print without crop marks.

Multi-page products

Where your print product runs over several pages, we recommend submitting a single PDF file in the order you'd like it to print, with the front cover on page and the back cover on the last page.

01_YourFilename, 02_YourFilename, 03_YourFilename etc.

Pagination

When supplying artwork for multi-page documents there’s no need to work out which pages will sit opposite each other.

In fact, we ask that you do not supply your pages as “Printers’ Pairs.” We prefer to receive your pages in order in the method outlined above.

Wirobound Brochures

Please allow a 10mm allowance on the edge of the artwork that will be wirobound. Failure to do so may lead to some of the artwork being "chopped off" and obscured by the wires.

Need Help?

Following these guidelines ensures that there will be no delays with your printing. If you have any problem, please don't hesitate to call our team on 0800 280 000 who will be more than willing to help.

0800 280 000