Graphic design for print: what a production-ready file actually contains

Every job on this site starts as a file. A shirt, a pouch, a sticker, a pen: whatever the process is, somebody hands a press or a machine an artwork file, and nothing that comes out the other end is better than what went in.

That is why design is not the decorative step at the front of the job. It is the step that decides whether the rest of the job runs at all. A file built for a screen printer looks different from the same design built for an embroidery machine, which looks different again from the version that goes on a heat press. Below is what each of those actually needs, and what you should expect to receive when you pay someone to make one.

What "print-ready" means, concretely

The phrase gets used loosely. In practice it means a specific list, and every item on it is a thing that breaks a job when it is missing.

• Correct trim size. The finished cut dimensions, not "about a business card".
• Bleed. Artwork extended past the trim so that a millimetre of cutting drift does not leave a white sliver on the edge.
• A safe margin. Type and logos held inside the trim so nothing important gets cut off.
• The right colour space. CMYK for anything printed with process inks, with spot colours called out separately where ink is actually being mixed.
• Images at print resolution at final size. A photo that looks sharp on screen is not the same thing as a photo that holds up at the size it will be printed.
• Fonts outlined or embedded. Otherwise the printer's machine substitutes something else and nobody notices until the proof.
• Special processes on their own layers. Spot varnish, foil, embossing, die cuts and white ink are each a separate plate or tool, so each one needs its own layer or path in the file.

Logo design — from $100

A logo is not one picture. It is a small system, because the same mark has to survive being one inch wide on a pen barrel, stitched in thread, reversed out of a dark garment, and squeezed into a circular profile picture.

So the deliverable is a set:

• A primary lockup, plus horizontal and stacked variants for different spaces.
• An icon-only version for avatars and favicons.
• One-colour, black, white and reversed versions.

You get vector source files, plus EPS and PDF for printers, SVG for web, and transparent PNGs at several sizes. Colour is specified in HEX, RGB and CMYK — and with a spot reference, because ink mixing, thread matching and pad printing all key off a spot colour rather than a screen value. Clear-space and minimum-size rules come with it, and the typefaces are named.

The one-colour version is the one people skip and then need. Pad printing a pen, laser engraving a tumbler, digitising for embroidery and foil stamping a notebook all want a single solid shape with no gradients. If that version does not exist, somebody improvises it later, usually at speed, usually badly.

Business cards — $75

Cards are designed and delivered as a print-ready file built to the printer's specification, with a digital proof to approve before anything runs.

Built to: correct trim size, bleed, a safe margin inside the trim, CMYK, images at print resolution, fonts outlined or embedded.

Finishing is where card files most often fail. Spot UV, foil, emboss, die cut, rounded corners, heavy stock and painted edges each need their own layer or dieline in the file. A spot UV effect is not something the printer can infer from a design that merely looks glossy — it is a separate pass with its own artwork, and it has to be supplied as such.

Flyers — $100

Copy laid out with a real hierarchy — one thing to read first, one thing to do next — then delivered twice, because a flyer now lives in two places.

• Print: trim, bleed, safe margin, CMYK, print-resolution images.
• Digital: RGB exports sized for feed, story and square formats.

The digital version is not the print PDF with a different extension. Feed, story and square are different crops, and text sized for a piece of paper in someone's hand is not text sized for a phone held at arm's length.

Animation

Logo stings, motion graphics and short explainers. Scope is agreed before anything moves — length, aspect ratios, whether there is audio — because revising after animation has started is expensive in a way that revising a still image is not.

What gets approved first is a storyboard or an animatic. That is the stage where changes are cheap, and it is where the revision rounds live. Deliverables are an MP4 master plus per-platform exports, MOV with an alpha channel where the animation has to sit over something else, and GIF or Lottie for web and interface use. Animation is quoted rather than listed, because the length and the number of moving pieces change the job completely.

Packaging design

Packaging artwork is built onto the manufacturer's dieline — the flat structural template from whoever is actually making the box, pouch or label. You cannot design a pouch and then find a dieline that fits it. The dieline comes first and the artwork is built into it.

The file is layered: print layers, and then separate layers for spot varnish, foil, embossing, and white ink on clear or metallic stock. On a clear or metallic substrate, white is a printed ink, not the absence of one, and it is the layer people forget.

You supply the barcodes you own and any content your product category is legally required to carry. Regulated categories have their own labelling rules that vary by jurisdiction, and they should be reviewed by someone qualified in that category. The layout is our job. The legal content is yours.

Clothing and merch design

Merch artwork is separated by the method it will be decorated with, which is the entire point of having it designed properly rather than handing over a JPG.

• Spot-colour vector for screen print, so the separations already exist.
• A simplified, stitch-aware version for embroidery, with realistic minimum text sizes, because thread cannot hold detail that ink can.
• Full-resolution transparent raster for DTF and DTG, built at the actual print size.

Along with that: the print size and position relative to the collar and the centre chest, which garment colours the design is built to work on, and a mockup sheet showing it on each of them.

Vector redraw and artwork prep

The most common starting point in a print shop is a logo that only exists as a small, blurry image, usually pulled off a website years after whoever made it stopped answering email.

A screen-grabbed JPG cannot be separated for screen print, digitised for embroidery, or cut on a plotter. It has to be redrawn as clean vector, after which it can be printed at any size, stitched, engraved or cut. The same work covers colour separation, resizing for a specific placement, and cleaning up a file that simply will not run as supplied.

What to send when you ask for a quote

Whatever you have. The original vector if it exists; the best image you own if it does not; and a sentence about where the artwork is going — a shirt, a pouch, a pen, a window. The destination is what decides how the file gets built, and it is cheaper to decide that at the start than to rebuild the file after a proof comes back wrong.

The rest of the disciplines are laid out on the services page, and if you already know what you need, tell us about the job.