A beautiful custom metal sign starts with great artwork. To assist with creating artwork, we provide templates. Please take note of our item’s slot or hole placement so that your artwork does not interfere.
Artwork can be emailed to sales@metalsigns.com or uploaded using our Contact Page.
Please include your P.O. # or design description within the file name when e-mailing artwork. It will help us locate your art file.
When a requested background color is unavailable, we will reverse-out, which means printing a product with a particular color up to the embossed border (1/4” from the edge of plate).
Here is an example of reverse-out printing:
STANDARD PRINTING
We only accept vector artwork for Standard Printing. All colors must be PMS colors (Pantone Matching System) or spot colors, not CMYK or RGB. Please include a composite printout with disks (cd or dvd) and a composite jpeg with e-mailed files to ensure artwork has not been corrupted. To assist with creating artwork, we provide templates. Please take note of our item’s slot or hole placement so that your artwork does not interfere.
Vector art is an editable contour line drawing or typeset copy usually created in a professional graphic program such as Adobe Illustrator, CorelDRAW, or Freehand. Vector artwork remains crisp and clear when enlarged or reduced. Raster art or bitmaps (jpeg, gif and bmp) become pixelated when enlarged or used for printing.
Our preferred graphic program is CorelDRAW (13) or Illustrator CS4 (14), but Freehand MX and QuarkXpress 4.0 are also accepted. If available, please send files in their native format (gradient fills can be corrupted when exported as .eps or .pdf files). However, .pdf and .eps files are often useable. Uncommon fonts must be converted to curves or outlines.
Please specify PMS color numbers, not CMYK or RGB colors. Although not guaranteed, we will try to match PMS colors as closely as possible.
4 COLOR PROCESS
Acceptable file formats are tif (preferred), pdf, and jpeg with a minimum resolution of 300 dpi.
A black and white vector file must also be supplied illustrating embossing detail.
Embossing Vector File:
If your design requires a die-cut shape or is printed to the edge of the plate or sign, please include a 1/4“ bleed to image supplied for cut area. Pantone matches will be made as close as possible with CMYK colors.
When designing your artwork, we require that your document settings are set to CMYK . Please use only CMYK color palettes in your design. This will reduce any art or color issues when converting from RGB to CMYK.
Designed in RGB:
Converted from RGB to CMYK:
To avoid major color conversions, please create your design on a CMYK platform.
*** For the best black output, we recommend setting your CMYK black to C:40 M:40 Y:40 K:100.