10 Tips for Designing Vehicle Wraps with Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator is a great tool for designing vehicle wraps, and with the help of Adobe PhotoShop you can achieve beautiful, high impact results. Perhaps the most important tip for the designer is to begin with an accurate template and work closely with your print provider to follow their required quidelines. Installation and print considerations can sometimes trump an interesting design idea when it comes down to the practicality of applying images on vinyl to metal. Below are 10 tips to bear in mind while working with wrap designs.

Vinyl Vehicle Wrap of Snake on a City Bus
Credit – Advertising Agency: Bates Y&R, Copenhagen, Denmark. Creative Director: Ib Borup. Art Director: Peder Schack. Agency Producers: Josephine Winther-Poupinel, Steen Nøhr. Other credit: Erich Karsholt

 

  1. Your design starts with an accurate template of your vehicle — they are available from the manufacturer or online and are essential for creation of your design at the correct size. Most templates come drawn at a scale of 1:20. Change the scale from 1:20 to 1:10 by selecting all and increasing the size by 200%. Now the scale is 1:10, where 1 inch onscreen equals 10 inches in real life. When the files are output, they are scaled at 1000%. It keeps the math simple.
  2. Begin by setting up your template with the correct layers. One layer will need to include all the bumpers, windows and elements that allow you to view the design in a realistic way, but are really not needed for printing. This layer should be at the top of the Layers palette. You can keep it locked while you work. Create separate layers for each of the different views that will be printed out: passenger side, drivers side, front, back and top. On each layer you will need to place a copy of the vehicle outline of that view to clip the images/artwork placed there. Create a Clipping Layer (not just a clipping path). That way, all art placed on that layer will be clipped, regardless of its order in the palette. When it comes time for output the clipping mask can be turned off. Also, name each layer clearly. Keeping all of this organized is the key to creating usable files that your printer can use for output.
  3. Keep in perspective how your wrapped vehicle will be seen – usually while in motion, or from a driver’s level view while sitting in traffic. Bolder colors and one main point of focus might work best to make your design eye-catching. Extensive text will probably not be very useful. By the way, if your vehicle has a sliding door, be sure any text or images don’t create an unexpected result when the door is open… you don’t want to be surprised by what might inadvertently be created!
  4. Be careful of the corners! Bear in mind that your design has to be tiled into panels which are generally 52 inches wide, and your print provider or installer will need to discuss with you any concerns they have about how difficult the crossovers on these panels will be to line up during application. When you design a side view, it will have to connect with the front and back view. These “corners” will have to either match or have some allowance made for one image ending and the other beginning. If you can work in a solid color in these areas, or white space, it may prevent an awkward crossover in the finished product.
  5. If you work with Photoshop to bring in image or pixel-based artwork for your wrap, be sure you are using a high resolution image. The preferred resolution for an image placed at 100% in this 1:10 scale is 720dpi – much higher than what is preferred for standard offset printing. The reason is that these files will be output at 1000%. File sizes will be large. Green gar with vinyl car wrap
  6. Some parts of your vehicle cannot be wrapped: state laws effect which windows can be covered with 50/50 window graphic material, and some plastic components will not allow the vinyl material to properly adhere. Consult the installer to find out these limitations, and to determine whether handles, chrome, and other decorative pieces can be removed, covered, or cut around.
  7. Keep it simple. Overly complex designs will often defeat your purpose, both in being visually confusing and difficult to install. Car wraps have great proven recall rates, but too much information will work against a good impression.
  8. Allow for at least 3 inches of bleed area outside the outline of the vehicle – that translates to .3 inches at the 1:10 scale you are working with. When in doubt, leave even more.
  9. Avoid use of spot colors – go ahead and convert them to CMYK or RGB (whichever mode in which your provider suggests you work). The use of spot colors where any transparency is involved can result in some strange and unexpected results when printed.
  10. Save a copy of your file to keep. Then turn all your fonts to outlines, save it as an eps and turn that in, along with ALL linked or placed image files, to your print provider.

Expect your printer to make some adjustments, with your approval, to your files in order to achieve the best results. It is also a good idea to doublecheck measurements between your digital template and the actual vehicle to avoid any costly mistakes. Designing “flat” artwork to fit over an irregular three dimensional object can be tricky, so work closely with your printer and installer to achieve the best possible outcome.

Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

Easy Adobe PhotoShop Tips: Keyboard Shortcuts

The first steps in learning Adobe Creative Suite’s PhotoShop are always exploring the tool bar and scanning through the drop down menus. But if you use PhotoShop with any regularity, you soon discover common tasks you are performing over and over with each image, and the repetition of those ‘click patterns’ can quickly become tedious. By learning and using even a few keyboard shortcuts you will be amazed at the speed with which you can accomplish your edits.

Everyone develops their own signature style and knowledge base in using PhotoShop, and we all settle on our own set of keyboard shortcuts that become second nature. For anyone new to PhotoShop, experiment with some of the most common. Many simple tasks, such as switching tools, can be accessed just by hitting a letter. The shortcuts are often obvious, some a little less so. You can hover over the tool icon on the tool palette and PhotoShop will tell you both the name of the tool and its keyboard shortcut in parentheses:

  • M = Marquee Keyboard Shortcuts in Adobe Photoshop Save Time
  • C = Crop
  • L = Lasso
  • B = Brush
  • E = Eraser
  • P = Pen
  • W = Magic Wand
  • V = Move
  • A = Direct Selection
  • I = Eyedropper
  • U = Rounded Rectangle
  • R = Rotate View

Common Keyboard Shortcuts for Adobe Photoshop Save Time

Common actions for editing that become very useful to know as a shortcut include:

  • Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J) duplicates the pixels you have selected to their own new layer.
  • Option-Delete (PC: Alt-Backspace) fill with foreground color
  • Command-Delete (PC: Ctrl-Backspace) fill with background color
  • Command-L brings up the Levels dialogue box
  • Command-M brings up the Curves dialogue box
  • Command-F5 brings up the Fill dialogue box

To move around quickly without changing tools on the toolbar, press and hold the Space Bar to temporarily activate the hand tool. To zoom in or out without the magnifying glass, try Command-+ or Command-– (PC: Crol-+ and Ctrl-–). To fit everything on screen, use Command-0.

Most shortcuts are listed under the drop down menus, or can be found in PhotoShop Help. To be honest, I stumble across most of them by accident – bumping the wrong key and wondering “Now how did that happen?” No harm done in fumbling around and finding out for yourself! Make friends with the shortcuts, and don’t feel pressure to learn them all (no one actually does that, do they?). Learn the ones that save you the most aggravation.

Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

 

Pantone’s 2012 Color of the Year is Tangerine Tango

Each December, Pantone chooses a “color of the year.” As the Pantone Matching System is used across all creative industries as a color standard, the annual selection has come to be influential for many designers and is chosen with careful consideration to the marketplace and overall consumer culture of the day. The color this year? Tangerine Tango (no, not reddish-orange!)

Pantone says the vibrant color “provide(s) the energy boost we need to recharge and move forward.” They call it “sophisticated but at the same time dramatic and seductive.”

Pantone Color of the Year Tangerine Tango

Pantone Color of Year Tangering Tango

The selection of a bright, high visibility hue is consistent with current trends in fashion and design that rely on loud, warm color choices over muted or more conservative ones. We’ve written in this blog before about “color psychology” which defines perceptions of orange as energetic but balanced, inviting, and best employed to give the feeling of movement and energy without being overpowering. Does PMS 7625C do it for you? Visit the Pantone website to download the color palettes for Adobe applications and begin to make reddish-orange… uh, Tangerine Tango… the star of your next marketing campaign.

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How to Make a Print-Ready PDF/X1a File: Save Time and Money

PDF stands for Portable Document Format… a friend of mine says it really stand for “Pretty Darn Fast.” And they do travel with much lower file size than your root documents and images. However there are many different “flavors” of pdfs that can be created with different end-uses in mind. Think of a pdf as a suitcase – you will have to decide what and how much to “stuff” into that suitcase so that everything needed at its destination will be there… and nothing that is not needed (therefore saving on file size).

Creating a print-ready PDF/X-1a file from your desktop application will save you time, money, and is your best bet to ensure error-free printing from your digital files. Unless you want your printer to be able to alter or edit your documents, just follow these easy steps to “pdf” your files.

  1. Choose File – Export. At the bottom of the dialog box, for Format choose Adobe PDF (Print). See Fig. A below.
  2. In the Export Adobe PDF window, you will initially start on the General tab (they are listed at the left). On this tab, at the top under Adobe PDF Preset, choose [Adobe PDF/X1-a: 2001]. This will adjust ALMOST all of the settings you need to create your print-ready file. See Fig. B below.
  3. Click on the Marks and Bleeds tab. Under the Marks section, check the box for crop marks, leaving the others unchecked. Notice that the Offset is set to 0.0833 in. by default. Under the Bleed and Slug area, enter 0.5 in. bleed for all four sides and leave other boxes unchecked. Whether or not your document has a bleed, we prefer all PDF/X-1a files to be submitted with crop marks and the 1/2 inch bleed area around the outside edges. See Fig. C below.

 

And that’s it!

File Export to PDF from InDesign
Figure A: File – Export
Step 2: the Export Adobe PDF window
Figure B: the Export Adobe PDF window
Marks and Bleed Area
Figure C: Crop Marks and 1/2 inch Bleed Area

These steps are specifically for Adobe’s Creative Suite and InDesign. You can create your pdf files directly out of PhotoShop and Illustrator as well. If you are using another desktop application, such as QuarkXpress or even Microsoft Word or Excel, all these controls will be there in different locations… you will still need to find where to select the PDF/X-1a preset and the accomodations for crop marks and bleed area.

We have many tools and tricks to adjust and control the output of properly made print-ready pdf files for offset printing. By using the pdf workflow, we bypass the problems of the past that included unwanted font substitutions, missing images, and accidental changes that could occur when reopening or editing root documents.

Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

 

5 Reasons to Love the Vector Version of Your Logo

Yes… you need a vector version of your logo! You may not be able to place or use it in a Word document, but for any high quality printing or output (or for spot or “2-color” printing) you should insist your designer supply you with the vector logo. Preferably, it will be the way your logo was originally created, and you will not have to pay or struggle to convert it from a pixel-based image after it has already become an integral part of your brand. Here are the reasons why:

  • Vector artwork can be scaled to any size needed and maintain its perfect clarity. They have crisp edges at any size as they are based on mathematical formulas rather than a bed of pixels.
  • They maintain a clear, transparent background when placed over other artwork or elements in your design. PNG files also have this ability but are pixel based so… (see reason #1)
  • They can function either in RGB or CMYK color modes as well as carry spot color definitions. You can select exact PMS color matches so that your brand is always reproduced consistently. While there are methods to include spot color information in a pixel-based file (DCS files from PhotoShop with spot color channels) they are, again, not resizeable and do not include easy trap information for printing.
  • You can easily switch a vector logo to a pixel-based file (.TIF, .JPG, .PNG, etc.) for manipulation, web use or other instances… but it is difficult and sometimes impossible to travel from pixel to vector in a satisfactory manner.
  • This last reason can be debatable and I am sure there are exceptions to the rule, but: as most logos need to be clean, vivid and memorable, vector shapes readily lend themselves to these qualities. The logos you know and remember are almost always designed as vector shapes rather than fuzzy, artistic brushstrokes or photographic effects.

WARNING: pixel-based files can be saved as EPS files, but be aware that just because it has an EPS suffix it has not been magically converted to a vector file. Also, pixel images can be placed into vector draw programs like Illustrator and saved as .AI or .EPS files. Again, not vector!

Vector shapes can be resized
both of these images are .EPS files, but the one on the left is pixellated. The one on the right is a true vector logo.
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Rich Blacks – 6 Ways to Define Black in Print

Just as colors vary from the natural world to your monitor to print (see Color Printing 101: the RBG & CMYK Gamuts), black is never JUST black. Rich Black, Cool Black, Warm Black, “Plain” Black, “Designer’s Black”…. each has their own reason for being. It is important to know them all, because on your computer monitor they all appear exactly alike!

Below are the standard compositions for some varieties of black used in the printing world.

How you make Rich Black

Using these wisely will enrich your design and allow you a spectrum of black to use for different effects. While designers use rich black for visual effect, printers occasionally rely on rich black to solve trapping issues when text is printed over a colored background. It can hide slight misregistration of plates that would otherwise result in a small gap in color.

In the RGB world of your monitor’s display, black (um… ‘pure’ black?) is composed of R0, G0, B0 (no light is emitted from any of the three channels). Regardless of how you define black for printing purposes, it will be rendered this way on your monitor and thus appear the same – a fact that has caused many bad results over the years. Photoshop has contributed to this with the fact that the “Fill with Black” command defines black as C100, M100, Y100, K100. The image you are working with may have a black area that will match perfectly onscreen, but once printed you will see the difference in your black and the rich black Photoshop used in the fill areas.

Rich Black vs. Plain BlackLeft: on your monitor, a .jpg logo may appear fine, but Right: once printed you see Plain vs. Rich Black

Many times we have seen, for example, a .jpg or .tif logo with a black background placed onto a larger black background in a page layout program – onscreen the result if fine, but once printed you immediately notice the marked difference between the logo area and the black box onto which it was placed.

The use of rich black or its variants can enrich printed graphics, but remember that too much ink coverage on certain papers can create other unintended problems, especially when used over large areas of coverage:

  • damage to lower quality papers
  • problems with ink drying times
  • ink offsetting onto the sheet above or below
  • increased costs of production.

Always consult your print provider for guidelines or concerns.

Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, high impact marketing solutions.

 

Color Printing 101: the RGB & CMYK gamuts

The science behind color itself is at the heart of printing – and key to meeting the expectations you have for a beautifully printed project. The first step in understanding the boundaries of printable color is to know that the human eye can detect much more color than is possible for your computer monitor to display. In turn, your monitor can show more colors than it is possible to reproduce in offset printing.

The best illustration of this is a color gamut comparison chart where you can actually see the ‘real estate’ involved in each spectrum. (It’s always seemed odd to me that we use this illustration either on a printed page or a monitor… both of which are limiting the actual colors they are trying to represent!) In the figure below, the entire color shape represents all the visible spectrum of light.

Color spectrum - RGB & CMYK gamuts
Color Gamut Comparison

The RBG color area represents the specific wavelengths of light your monitor emits, and is clearly a much smaller area. Even smaller is the CMYK gamut showing colors that can be reproduced with printing inks. Cyan, Magenta and Yellow pigments (K or Black is added to create depth, definition and ensure a true black color) work as filters that subtract certain wavelengths of light and reflect others. They combine to create a spectrum of printable color.

Switching a file from RGB to CMYK in PhotoShop on your screen can visually show you the color shift that occurs when you switch to a more restrictive gamut. Try it on a random image and see if you notice a significant loss of color. Some printers prefer you leave your images in RBG mode with ICC profiles attached, while others prefer you go ahead and switch to CMYK mode, as that will inevitably happen before the printing process.

Most cameras and scanners capture color in RGB mode (or to get even more technical, the “sRGB” mode, or a standard definition of what colors can be shown on a computer monitor, as opposed to all the RGB colors that can be seen visually with reflective light). Some cameras have the aRGB (AdobeRGB) definition or a selection called “Raw” – it can capture more colors digitally than you will be able to see, but may be helpful when you edit and adjust your photographs in an editing program such as PhotoShop.

Printing methods are able to reproduce only a certain gamut of colors as well. When files contain colors that fall outside of that gamut, the RIP process must decide what to do with those colors – i.e., how to alter them in specific ways to make them become a color which is printable – and this is decided by the Rendering Intent options of the RIP software or printer driver. Rendering intents are mathematical formulas that alter out-of-gamut colors in predefined ways.

When an exact color match is needed on your print project, consider using a spot color ink in your design. Metallic inks also can give a great effect that isn’t possible with combinations of just the 4-color process inks. Paper or media choice will also affect and enhance the quality of printed colors.

Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, high impact marketing solutions.

How to Set Up Tri-Fold Brochures that Fold Correctly

If you layout your 8.5 x 11 brochure for a tri-fold by splitting your page into 3 equal columns, it will NOT fold correctly. Text and images will appear off center once folded on several of the panels. The thickness of the paper during the fold must be accounted for to achieve a finished panel that is centered. The panels on the inside, being a mirror image in placement of the ones on the outside, must also be offset an equal but opposite (in the other direction) amount. The amount of offset, however, can vary depending on if you are printing on text weight, cover stock, or other paper types. Below you will find a general setup that works for a tri-fold brochure. (With InDesign, multiple page sizes are supported within one document so you can set up your different sized panels there as a 6 page document as well).

How to set-up a tri-fold, 8.5 x 11 brochure:

Allow a .375” margin on all four sides of the paper (unless you are sure you are printing on oversized paper to accommodate a bleed.) Two panels are 1/16” larger than the third. Pages 1 & 2 of your document must be set up INDIVIDUALLY with different panel widths, being mirror images of each other – see the diagrams below. Unless you are using heavy paper, an amount more than 1/16” will be far too much for a fold allowance.

The FRONT COVER or outside panels:

Panels 2 & 3 must be slightly larger than Panel 1.

Brochure Trifold

 

The Back or INSIDE PANELS:

Panels 1 & 2 must be slightly larger than Panel 3 (the mirror image of the outisde setup)

Trifold brochure dimensions
Dimensions for the inside panels of a Tri-Fold brochure
Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, high impact marketing solutions.

 

Let it Bleed: Designing With Bleed Area in Mind

Planning bleed in your print layout
One of the most common issues we encounter daily in our ImageSmith prepress department with incoming files concerns bleeds – or rather, a lack of bleeds! When designing and proofing, it is easy and tempting to ignore bleed allowances as we concentrate on the look of a finished piece. However, additional unexpected costs can be incurred when a bleed area has to be “created” from your digital files, or when printing on a larger paper size that exceeds your quoted specs is required to accommodate a bleed area. It is, however, very simple to avoid these costs and confusions when creating PDF files for your print provider.

Basics about bleeds
A “bleed” is any image (including text, color, etc) that extends off the edge of the printed piece. No press can print exactly to the edge of a piece of paper, especially over the course of a run of hundreds or thousands of sheets. Therefore if you have designed a bleed, your piece must be printed on a larger size of paper and then cut down to your finished size. This may or may not incur greater costs for the production of your piece, so you should be aware of this before printing begins and your printer should know in order to accurately quote your job. Good communication with your print provider from the beginning of your project, as always, can save you lots of time and money.
Design: Bleed vs. Bleed Area
When designing your bleeds, your artwork or text must physically extend over the edge of your document size, onto the surrounding pasteboard. When first setting up your document, provide a bleed area of .5 inches on all sides. This will give more than enough room for the elements to bleed. The “bleed” itself is the part of the picture, text or design that actually extends past the finished edge. As for the distance the artwork needs to extend over this edge, ImageSmith suggests .25 inches as adequate. So the actual bleed does not completely fill up the bleed area.

Exporting to PDF
Even though you design a bleed correctly in your document, exporting a pdf that does not include the bleed area will defeat the purpose!. Choose the PDF/X-1a:2001 preset in your PDF dialog box, and under the “Marks and Bleeds” tab, be sure to click “Crop Marks” and “Page Information” and to enter .5″ in the Bleed section, as seen in the accompanying diagram. If your Document Size is 8.5 x 11, you will be creating a pdf that is 9.5 x 12 – including 1/2 inch on all four sides to accommodate your bleed.
Keep in mind that your pdf will always be larger than your finished document size if you have accommodated for bleed area.
Call on ImageSmith for any advice or questions you may have about desktop publishing or digital file submission tips. It’s one of the ways we earn our stripes!