Having a clear understanding of artwork guidelines is crucial to bringing your signage visions to life. At Exhibition & Display Services, we’re committed to ensuring your designs are flawlessly translated onto banners, boards, and more. To help you navigate this, here’s an in-depth guide to our preferred file formats, bleed requirements and other considerations.
Our preferred canvas for your artwork is a high-resolution PDF, designed to uphold the integrity of your design during the printing process. Here’s what you need to know:
• Trim Marks and Document Size: Include trim marks on all files, and ensure the document size matches the final trimmed size at 100%. Trim marks must be added for accurate cutting.
• Bleed: Apply a 10mm bleed to all edges. For Wraps and Fabric Banners, extend the bleed to 25mm.
• Fonts: Convert fonts to “outlines,” “curves,” or “paths” to eliminate any compatibility concerns.
• Colours and Resolution: Use CMYK images with a resolution of at least 100dpi, or opt for vector-based graphics.
• Flattening: Ensure all images, photos, and transparencies are flattened for seamless integration. Any clipping (contour) paths must be used correctly (rather than merely placed with a transparent background in InDesign).
Choose between email (for files up to 8mb) or WeTransfer (for larger files) for a seamless file transfer experience.
• Vector: Vector based drawings build images by using mathematical formulas to describe points, lines and shapes. Vector graphics are resolution independent and can be enlarged to any size without loss of quality, unlike scans which depend on proper resolution for realistic rendering.
• Resolution: The number of dots/pixels per unit of measure to form an image. For best results, files should be at 100% of the final trimmed size with all photos and images in that file using 100dpi (dots per inch). Adjust dpi accordingly if scaling down or up.
• Colour Reproduction: All colours in your file need to be made up of CMYK or Pantone colours, not RGB. We will try to match colours in your file as closely as possible, but due to variations in monitors, printing devices and vinyl available, we cannot guarantee an exact match.
Our full artwork guidelines can be viewed here for more information.
If you have any other questions, please reach out to us at info@exhibitiondisplayservices.com.au or call 07 3216 2512.