a comprehensive resource designed to answer the most common queries about our printing services, design support, delivery options, ordering processes, file preparation, artwork guidelines, and customer care. Whether you’re new to printing or looking for detailed technical information, this page provides clear answers to help you understand how we work and what to expect when working with us.
We provide professional printing services, custom design solutions, signage and display printing, branded merchandise, large format graphics, website and digital design, and much more; all tailored for businesses, organisations, education, events, and personal use.
There are loads of things to take into account when preparing artwork for printing. Most of the main things are covered in the rest of the FAQs, but to view full information on Artwork Supply, click here.
The higher the dpi (dots per inch) of a photograph, the better it will look when it is printed. So, obviously the higher the better. But try and aim for a minimum of 300dpi. We accept most types of image file. TIF files are the best for photo quality, but they’re massive so usually a high resolution JPEG will be the best bet. It’s up to you.
How you proof your finished design is really up to you. We can send it to you by e-mail as a PDF, or you can come into the shop and see what it looks like on paper, or we can send it out to you in the post. E-mail is generally the quickest way of proofing a finished design and proofing by post takes the longest, but the choice, as ever, lies with you.
Full colour printing uses and mixes up four main colours- Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. Also known as CMYK. In case you were wondering, there is a good reason it’s not CMYB – the colours on your screen are made up of Red, Green and Blue, known as RGB. It would get very confusing if black and blue were both known as B. Anyway… mixing these four colours in thousands of different ways can give us a huge range of colours. That’s why it’s so good. However, it doesn’t cover every colour and the range of colours that can be displayed on a computer screen (RGB) are not the same as the range that can be printed. For more information about this see please see page 2 of our Artwork Supply Guide . Most commercial magazines and promotional products are printed this way and we’ve never had a customer who has been disappointed with the result.
Bleed is a little bit difficult to explain without using an example. It is a printed area on the outside of the finished design. It makes the design larger than the finished product will actually be, but means that we have a little bit of space for trimming- so we don’t have to cut off any of the actual design and you don’t end up with a thin white line around the outside where it has not been trimmed close enough. Bleed should be at least 3mm and shouldn’t contain anything that you would mind losing i.e text, pictures, etc. For a comprehensive guide to bleed, please see page 3 of our Artwork Supply Guide
Laminating card can stop it from getting creased, sun-damaged, wrinkled, stained, smudged or marked by grease and fingerprints. You can’t write on it though because it is basically a layer of plastic that encases the paper inside.
We charge a standard £45 + VAT an hour for design work. This covers your initial design and all amendments thereafter. When we give a quote we will give you an estimated design time based on the design work we have previously done for similar projects. However, if you require lots of amendments the design time may go over the estimated design time. We will always keep you aware if design is due to go over the estimated time and we won’t proceed until you are happy to do so.
If a design job is needed urgently, there will be a priority fee of £50 +VAT per hour.
You can either give us a call, drop us an email or come and visit us. We are happy to listen to your ideas and give our creative input where needed. We will then give you an idea of timescale and price and, once approved, we will get started on your initial design.
The time of a design project differs massively from job to job. Once we know your requirements, we will provide you with an estimated timescale for the job based on similar projects we have done. We do this to give you a guide on the price and timescale of the job. However, if you require lots of amendments or if content (e.g. text) is not supplied, the design time may be longer. We will always keep you aware if design is due to go over the estimated time and we won’t proceed until you are happy to do so.
We keep everything we design on file so that it can be accessed and/or changed in the future. This means that we can print multiple runs of an item without re-designing the whole thing or update a design if you want to change it in the future.
Once you’re happy and all costs are settled, the design is yours. We are able to supply your design in whatever format you require for you to use however you wish. We do also offer a printing service which we can give you a quote for if required.
In the highly unlikely event that your items are not delivered in the condition you expect, we will of course resupply the item in question. We will just need a photograph of the item you are unhappy with before we resend it.
The only exceptions to this will be if the item has been damaged as a result of opening, mishandling, mistreatment, vandalism, heavy weather conditions or other circumstances beyond our control. Even then we will do our best to make sure you are satisfied with the product.
Firstly, we need to know what format you want your design in (e.g. a poster or brochure) and the specification of this. For example, if you wanted a brochure we would need to know the size and amount of pages you require. We also need to know the content you would like in the design. For example, this may include: the text, any images, your logo etc. This can be sent via email or if files are too large contact us and we’ll tell you how to upload your files through our website.
You can then have a consultation with one of our designers either face to face, over telephone or by email – whatever is best for you. The consultation will set out what you want the design to look like. For instance, you might supply us with images of designs you like the look of, supply us with your branding guidelines or just let us know what you want the design to achieve. Our designers are experienced in understanding what you envision but the more information you can supply the designer, the more accurate the design will be to your requirements. The more information you provide also means that less amendments will be needed and the design will be completed faster.
We have thousands of fonts available to use, but it would be impossible for us to have every one. If you use a font that we don’t have then it would be necessary for you to send us a copy of the font, or a link to somewhere it can be downloaded (assuming it is a free font). Alternatively, in many programs you can convert your text to ‘curves’ or ‘outlines’ and this is normally the best bet to avoid problems.
You can choose to use your own images within your design or we can source them for you. If you are supplying images we ask that it has a high resolution (clear/sharp – not fuzzy) so that it will look clear in the design. For design that will be used for print, we recommend that the minimum DPI (dots per inch) is 300. We accept JPEG, PNG, PDF, TIFF, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop files which you can send to us via email or through our website.
Yes, absolutely. Delivery is free on all orders over £50. See more details on our Delivery page for more information.