Supplying your Artwork / Artwork Requirements
We’ve produced this guide to follow for supplying your artwork for printing, just to help ensure your printed items looks as good as on screen! Artwork that doesn’t meet our specifications may not reproduce correctly and we can’t be held responsible for any errors in the print quality that occur as a result of incorrectly supplied artwork.
Here at Sherwin Rivers, we accept the following formats:
- PDF with all fonts and images embedded – as our first preference.
- EPS.
- Tiff.
- Adobe Illustrator (.ai) Please covert all fonts to outlines and embed all images.
- Adobe Photoshop (.psd) Please flatten all layers and a minimum of 300dpi.
- Adobe InDesign (.ind) Please package your document so that we have all links and fonts available.
- JPEG at minimum 300dpi.
Unfortunately, we are unable to print directly from a Microsoft file (Word, PowerPoint, etc) however, if the Microsoft file has been exported to a PDF, we will be able to print the file.
Adobe Illustrator
If you are supplying your Ai file as a PDF, please follow the three steps below.
- Click ‘File’
- Select ‘Save As’
- Select ‘Adobe PDF’ from the ‘Format’ drop down menu
If you are supplying your native artwork file, please covert all text to outlines and embed all images.
Adobe Photoshop
While working on your document, always save it as a PSD file with all of the image and text layers preserved. Do not flatten your layers prior to saving as it will be much more difficult to complete any necessary changes.
If you are supplying your PSD file as a PDF, please follow the three steps below.
- Click ‘File’
- Select ‘Save As’
- Select ‘Photoshop PDF’ from the ‘Format’ drop down menu
If you are supplying your native artwork file, please covert all text to outlines and embed all images.
Adobe InDesign
When you have completed your Ind file and you are ready to export to a PDF, please follow these steps.
- Click ‘File’
- Select ‘Export’
- Select ‘Adobe PDF’ from the ‘Format’ drop down menu
If you are supplying your native artwork file, please ‘package’ your document so that we have all links and fonts available.
If you are unsure how to package an InDesign file, please follow the listed steps below.
- Click ‘File’
- Select ‘Package’
- A dialog box will appear which will show you all of your used fonts, linked images, print settings etc. If you are happy that everything has packaged correctly, press ‘Package…’
Bleed
Please include 5mm bleed around your artwork. If you are supplying a JPG or TIFF, please include a 5mm bleed in your artwork. For example, if you’re working on A3, which is usually 420x297mm, add 5mm to your document so that it is 425x302mm.
If you do not add bleed to your document and you have text close to the edge of the artwork, they may get trimmed when cutting down your artwork to size.
Colour
Please ensure that all of your colour settings are set to CMYK and not RGB. All embedded images also need to be CMYK.
For more information on the differences between CMYK and RGB, please read through our handy blog which explains everything you will need to know.
Images
When supplying artwork with any placed images please ensure that the images are:
- CMYK
- Embedded
- At least 300dpi
It is essential that the images are CMYK and at least 300dpi for the possible results when printed. If the document is in RGB, the printed document will look different than on screen and if your images are less than 300dpi, you will lose quality from the image and they may look blurry or distorted.
Fonts
If you are supplying native artwork files, please ensure that all fonts are outlined. If you supply a document and we do not have the fonts which you have used, the fonts will be automatically substituted for a default set. You don’t want your beautiful script font replaced with Times New Roman!
Finished & Artwork Sizes
A6
Finished Size – 105 x 148.5mm
Artwork Size – 110 x 153.5mm
A5
Finished Size – 210 x 148.5mm
Artwork Size – 215 x 153.5mm
A4
Finished Size – 210 x 297mm
Artwork Size – 215 x 302mm
A3
Finished Size – 297 x 420mm
Artwork Size – 302 x 425mm
Sending Your Artwork
You can send your artwork files by email to design@sherwin-rivers.co.uk. If your files are larger than 10mb, please use either our WeTransfer which you can find on our website at the very top which is labelled ‘Send Files’ or via MailBigFile. Please ensure that if you are sending a native artwork file that you also keep an original copy.
USB or Disk
If you have many different files and would prefer to supply on a USB or disk, you can either send the hardware in the post or pop into our studio and we will remove any files for you. Please note that we will not print any files we have removed instantly.
Or… Start your Design Project with us…
Starting your Design or Branding project with Sherwin Rivers is easy, drop up a line…