CUSTOM LABEL DESIGN SERVICE | ARTWORK FILE TYPES

Do you need a custom label design service

We are pleased to offer a custom label design service to customers who dont have professional artwork files to use for their new label design.

No matter how "rough" your design or concept, we can work with you to acheive exactly the label label design you need in a very cost effective way, saving you the costs of commisioning a full grahic design service from an advertising or design agency.

Just ask our sales team for details.

examples of the type of designs we have done for our customers

Software we use to design labels

If you do have artwork for us to work with, then please note the following guidence notes from our design studio.

Our graphic design studio is PC based using predominately CorelDraw 14, & Adobe Illustrator CS3. These are our preferred file formats.

We prefer artwork created using these vector based drawing programs as this gives you much higher quality results than raster based design packages such as Adobe Photoshop. It also gives better colour separation results.

Graphic images such as logos are best sent as originals or as 600 dpi TIFF files

We do not accept Quark Xpress files. If Quark Xpress is the only program you are using then please convert all of the text in your design to outline paths and save as a PDF and an EPS file and send us both of these files to work from. The PDF and EPS file will usually satisfactorily import into Adobe Illustrator.

We do not accept Gif or Jpeg files as these type of files are usually of very poor quality due to compression artefacts.

Sources of images

If you are looking for new images to include in your label designs, you could try these three services which we have found to be invaluable:

istockphoto.com
Getty Images
Fotolia.co.uk

Preferred file types (in order of preference)

Coreldraw v14 with all text converted to curves
Adobe Illustrator CS3 with all text as outline paths
EPS with all text as outline paths
PDF with all text as outline paths
TIFF 600dpi for photographic images only
BMP for 1 colour mono logo, at 600 dpi

For a full explanation of different graphics file types visit the Wikipedia pages on graphics pages here

These file types may work to a reasonable quality, but commonly cause problems

Word Documents - we can only use this for simple text designs
Excel - simple text designs only
PPT - simple text designs only

If the file type you use is not listed, then please contact our sales staff to discuss the transfer of your file.

Hardware

We can accept artwork sent to us by email or CD. We do not operate an ISDN connection solely for artwork transfer.

Instructions

When designing all artwork for label printing use vector based drawing programs such as CorelDraw 14, & Adobe Illustrator CS3 for the best results. This will improve the sharpness of the printing plates and allow for easier colour separation.

Any photographic images should be embedded into the file and all text created where possible as vector drawing line work.

If your artwork needs bleed off e.g. the print touches an edge of the label, please allow 1.5 mm of bleed off. Always remember to convert all fonts to Curves/Paths this will stop any missing font issues, when being opened by us.

Flexographically printed labels have to be stepped and repeated and have allow for stretch around the cylinder before sending for plates. This however is not a simple process and you should contact the artwork department for advice on how to step and repeat your design. It is preferable if you allow us to do this for you.

The most common problems we face with artwork are low resolution jpeg and gif files being sent to us ( which are just not usable for printing) and clients sending designs to us without converting fonts into outline paths. If you do not do this we may not have the same fonts on our system and this will delay the artwork approval stage of the order.

If you have any concerns or queries please ring our art department for advice on how to send your files or email chris.amos@selfadhesivelabels.com

Proofing

Please send us a colour proof of your artwork with your order if possible. We will always send you an artwork approval form before we print your order by fax or emailed as a PDF file.