Artwork Guide

Three easy steps to design and submit your artwork

Having years of experience in helping people put together their artwork, we have seen the various problems that can occur. Anybody with a home computer and the relevant software can create their own artwork. You don't need to be a great artist to make something attractive that will add value to your project. Don't forget to check our Useful Resources page here for some great freeware graphic design software!

For those experienced in graphic design, this quick checklist may be all you need to follow: 1. Download the relevant templates for your software. 2. Load templates and observe inner and outer 3mm bleed where applicable. 3. Design artwork or check existing artwork against templates here - please note special rules for on-disk print. 4. Discard template from image. Flatten image. Save as .TIFF or .JPG. Go here to upload.

For everyone else, here is a step by step guide for your artwork design

1. Download the DMD design templates

Whether you have your artwork designed already, or are starting from scratch, you will need to ensure it is compatible with our templates.

You can choose to either download the photoshop (.PSD) or JPEG (.JPG) versions, depending on which software you use. The .jpg versions will open in all software. The photoshop versions have the template as a layer enabling you to turn it on and off for convenience.

DOWNLOAD .JPG or .PSD CD On-Disk Print
DOWNLOAD .JPG or .PSD CD 2 Page Booklet
DOWNLOAD .JPG or .PSD CD 4 Page Booklet
DOWNLOAD .JPG or .PSD CD Rear Insert
DOWNLOAD .JPG or .PSD DVD On-Disk Print
DOWNLOAD .JPG or .PSD DVD Cover Wrap

Below is a picture of the cd booklet template with sample artwork superimposed to illustrate how it works.

Commercial printing differs from home printing in that it requires what is know as a 'bleed' area. Note the artwork extends to the outer dotted lines, but this outer section will not be printed. This is the outer 'bleed' area.

The area marker as the '3mm no text 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.

2. Design your artwork

Now you understand the concept of bleed and are familiar with the templates you can get down to designing your artwork.

Some points to remember are

- Don't forget to include your contact details. Website, myspace, email, and phone number are vital
- a copyright notice is important. Writing (C) (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 artwork will most likely be at 72 dpi, whereas the booklet template is 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 on-disc print

The on-disk artwork is printed thermally with black ink onto a silver shiny surface.

Professional looking results are obtainable by following a few simple guidelines :

- The design should not contain any photos or complex textures

- At least 50% of the surface should remain unprinted.

- The printable area is clearly shown in the template. If you wish to print to the limits of this area you should extend the artwork outside the template boundaries by 3mm. PLEASE NOTE the printer will not print to the *very* edge of the cd.

Here is a sample of a great looking on-disk print that follows these guidelines.

3. Save your artwork and upload it

Now the hard work is done you just have to get it here for printing.

Delete The Template

The first thing to do is to get rid of the template from your artwork. This is as easy as turning off the relevant layer in photoshop. Depending on how you used your software, you may have to delete it manually.

Here's an example to clarify how the final artwork should be saved without the template.

Flatten the layers

If you are using Photoshop, or any program that uses layers, the next stage is to flatten the image.

Save in the correct file format

The file should then be saved ideally in TIFF format with lossless LZW compression.

For example, in Photoshop choose:

- File
- Save As
- Select TIFF. from drop down menu: Format TIFF (*.TIF)

For example, in Gimp choose:

- File
- Save As
- Click + Button By 'Select File Type (By Extension)' and Select TIFF image
- A window called 'Save As TIFF' will appear. Simply select LZW compression. If your software does not give the option of TIFF format then select .jpg format. Increase the quality to maximum or select as big a file size as possible.

If your software does not give the option of TIFF format then select .JPG format. Increase the quality to maximum or select as big a file size as possible.

Upload to the DMD FTP site

Visit Our FTP Upload page or simply go here and follow the simple on-screen instructions to upload. You will then be contacted as soon as the artwork is checked over and confirmed ready for duplication.

If you have any further questions or need help with the artwork, please don't hesitate to get in contact.