Artwork Guide
Who is this guide for?
This guide is intended to help anyone with basic knowledge of some graphic art software to create the correct specification artwork for printing with DMD.
4 easy steps to design and submit your artwork
Anyone can design their own artwork
You don't need to be a trained artist to make something attractive that will add value to your product, and nowadays you don't even need to pay for any new software. Check out our Additional Resources page for some very good freeware graphic art software.
For those experienced in graphic design, this quick checklist may be all you need to follow:
- 1. Download the relevant templates for your project.
- 2. Load the templates, open at correct dpi and observe inner and outer 3mm bleed where applicable.
- 3. Design artwork or check existing artwork against the templates. Please note the special rules for on-disk print artwork, which are detailed below.
- 4. Save as press ready PDF with imbedded fonts, flattened TIFF or JPG.
- 5. Use the FTP Upload page to send us your finished artwork.
Step 1. Download the DMD design templates
Which templates are the right ones?
If you are unsure which templates to use, please get in contact.
You can choose to either download the PDF or JPEG versions depending on what software you use.
- The PDF templates for paper based printing must be opened at 300 dpi, and for on-disk printing 600 dpi. The JPG versions should automatically open at these resolutions, but you must confirm this in your software.
Where do I download the templates?
All our most popular templates are available to download on the Templates Page.
Step 2. Using the templates and understanding the 'bleed' safety margin
Load the template into your graphic art software
First you must load the template into your graphic art software, making sure it is opened at the correct dpi in CMYK colour mode.
You are going to design your artwork on-top of this template, and then delete it at the end.
Below is a picture of a 2 page cd booklet template with sample artwork superimposed to illustrate how it works.
What are the 'bleed' and 'safety' areas?
Commercial printing differs from home printing in that it requires what is know as a 'bleed' area. Note the above artwork extends to the outer purple lines, but this outer section will not be printed. This is the outer 'bleed' area.
The grey area marked as the 'safety area' may or may not be printed. This is why it should have no vital part of the image within it (such as text). This is the inner bleed area. The reason for these bleed areas are due to the technicalities of bulk paper cutting and are universal in all commercial printing.
Now see below how the final printed booklet will appear after being cut to size.
Step 3. Design your artwork
Some important points to remember
- Don't forget to include your contact details - email address or phone number at the very least.
- A copyright notice is important. Writing © [year] [name of copyright holder] is all that is needed.
- Don't make the text too small or blend with the background too much.
Resolution
The resolution of the artwork is directly linked to the final print quality. The industry standard is 300 dpi (or dots per inch). Here is an example of how increasing the resolution (dpi) increases the quality of an image:
It is important to remember that even though your software is now using a high resolution 300 dpi template, any low resolution images you load in will remain low resolution! A common problem is using images from the web. Web images will most likely be at 72 dpi, whereas the templates are at 300 dpi. When imported into the template it may look fine on screen (as monitors usually display at 72 dpi), but when printed it will appear blocky and low quality.
Special rules for the different types of on-disk print
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Standard on-disk black on silver (text/logo) (for duplicated disks)This type of disk is printed black ink onto a silver shiny surface.
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Full colour, part coverage (text/logo) (for duplicated disks)This type of disk is printed full colour onto the white surface of the disk with partial coverage.
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Full colour, full coverage (for duplicated or replicated disks)This type of disk is printed full colour onto the entire surface of the disk. There are no limits to this design.
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Step 4. Save your artwork and upload/email it to us
Which file format to use
If you have created your artwork in vector based software such as Adobe Illustrator/Freehand, Scribus or Quark, then you should save it as a press ready PDF files with the fonts imbedded or converted to outlines.
If you have created it in a bitmap based software such as Adobe Photoshop or The GIMP, then please delete the template layer, and then flatten the image. You can now save it in either lossless TIFF format for highest quality, or standard .JPG with the highest quality/largest file size settings available.
We will always send you back a final PDF proof file with your artwork superimposed onto a template for you to approve before we proceed to print your artwork.
Upload to our FTP area or send it over to us as an email attachment
Visit our FTP Upload page and follow the simple on-screen instructions to upload your artwork.
Alternatively you can email the artwork directly to us at info@digitalmediaduplication.com.
You will then be contacted as soon as the artwork is checked over and confirmed ready for production.
More questions?
If you have any further questions or need help with the artwork, please don't hesitate to get in contact.
