You don’t have to spend too long on pull up banners – ultimate banners to realise just how much work goes into creating print perfect artwork for a pull up banner.
Regardless of the industry that you work in and the specific product or service that you are advertising, designing a great piece of artwork doesn’t come easy.
Not only do you have to think about the design itself, but you also have to think about the dimensions and supplying it in the correct print format.
This is a lot to take into consideration, especially if you are somewhat lacking in experience and haven’t created print perfect artwork before. Luckily, help is at hand. Here are some top tips and tricks to ensure that your artwork is perfect and ready for printing.
Useful Tips For Creating Great Print Artwork
- Dedicate Adequate Time to the Design Process – Before even thinking about whether or not your artwork is ready for printing, make sure to dedicate enough time to the general design process. There are a lot of banners and advertising materials out there, which means that yours needs to stand out and grab the attention of potential customers. Without a great design, this is unlikely to happen and the banner will go unnoticed. Print perfect artwork should be colourful, branded, well thought out and unique to the business. It should include key pieces of information, rather than an abundance of text. It should include images and graphics, but only those that are relevant and high quality. It should also include a call to action, to encourage people to get in touch. If your artwork does not include any of these things, it is not yet print ready.
- Double Check Everything – Though you may know your artwork design inside out, it is very easy to overlook problems. When you have been working on something for a long time and have made a number of changes along the way, you may not notice spelling errors and small design mistakes. This is why it is hugely important to double check everything, triple checking if you have a chance. It’s a good idea to get someone else to look over it if you can, as a fresh set of eyes is often able to pick up on things that you may not have noticed. Nobody wants to waste time and money by printing artwork that isn’t perfect and having to go through the entire process again, which is why checking is key.
- Use an Artwork Template – There is a lot that goes into creating print perfect artwork and this leads to a lot of people getting confused, mistakes being made and artwork not coming out as originally planned. In order for the artwork to be print perfect, it needs to be supplied in the correct size. By using an artwork template, you don’t need to worry about the banner not being printed to a high quality and the artwork being altered in any way. This is because a template ensures the artwork is the requested size and that the correct dimensions are met, as well as helping you to avoid design errors. It will guide you through the entire design process, from beginning to end. Without a banner template, there is always a risk that the quality of the banner will suffer and aspects of the design will be altered. There are a lot of artwork templates to choose from, which means that finding one you like isn’t too difficult.
- Create Artwork in CMYK – A lot of people make the mistake of assuming that all colours are the same, thinking that two shades that look the same must be identical. However, this is not the case at all and it’s how a lot of errors are made. You should always create artwork in CMYK – Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black – and not RGB, as this ensures that the printer uses the colours you want. If you are using branded colours, CMYK will guarantee that the shades and tones will match your other advertising materials. By supplying print ready artwork in CMYK, you remove the risk of the banner having slightly different colours than you intended.
- Always Leave a Bleed and Crop Marks – It’s important to leave a bleed on any artwork before sending it to be printed, otherwise it is not print perfectly. Printing to the edge of a banner is difficult and this means that the edge is at risk of being cut off, but leaving a bleed prevents that. When you leave a bleed, there is no worry about areas of the artwork being cut off during the printing process. A larger area can be printed to include bleed, which is then discarded and trimmed down to the artwork edge. Leaving crop marks on your design works in a very similar way. Crop marks are printed in the corners to show where the artwork ends and which area should be trimmed away. It allows you to use all of the potential artwork space, without worrying about anything being forgotten about or accidentally cut off during printing.
Though creating print perfect artwork may sound daunting, it really doesn’t need to be. As long as you take the time to thoroughly check everything, leave a bleed and you supply the artwork in the correct format printing should go to plan.
You will have a fantastic banner in no time, as long as you dedicate enough time and energy into ensuring the design has everything. It may be tempting to cut corners and rush to get things finished but this will usually result in subpar artwork and a low quality banner, which won’t make the impact that you want.