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Artwork & Plates

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On this page is a brief overview of our services & rates for artwork and extra work (color separations, color matching, etc.) required for imprinting. And information on artwork being submitted. Please enclose your fax number as we fax finished art that we do back to our customers for their final approval. Customers who do not have us fax art or email art; waive their right to inspect art. CSI Chicago cannot be held responsible for incorrect spelling, layout, etc. due to customers who do not check final artwork and OK it. 

When coming in to do artwork bring everything you have for us to work with, any printed items, logos, photos, digital files, etc. Send as many different files as you have, in case one does not work then we don't waste time trying contact you to get a different file. Black & white art is best for our screen printing process, do not bring in color art for screen printing. For our color digital process-full color printed material is best and high resolution Jpeg files work well most of the time. All art should be no bigger than 8.5 x 11. 

Services/Information

  • Artwork use fee is $40.00 per hour, Minimum art charge is $20.00 (1/2 hour). Average artwork takes about 1-2 hours for logos from your idea or sketch. For simple designs or incorporating our clip art for use on t-shirts & product imprinting usually takes about 1/2 to 1 hour. Customers supplying camera ready art there is no art charge. 
  • Plates for most wearable orders is $25.00 each, Large plates (a heart size & full size design) or halftone plates (photographs being reproduced in one color are $40.00 each  Each color in a design requires a plate, example a 3 color design requires 3 plates. Four color process plates are about $60.00 ea.
  • Halftone Scans are $15.00 (photographs to be imprinted on wearables and products) require a halftone scan to be done before a plate can be made from it. Please keep in mind when submitting photographs to be halftoned that photographs should have good contrast, color and clarity. If we feel a photograph will not reproduce properly will inform you of that, customer assumes all responsibility for photos given to us for halftone reproductions.
  • Please keep in mind that in the custom imprint product business, that it is standard to have a 10% over or underun due to different printing processes. All over/underuns are billable to the customer plus any shipping cost to get products to our warehouse or to the customer.
  • Please note all artwork and typesetting by us for customers, requires the customer to proof all finished work for accuracy, spelling, color, etc. Customers who do not proof work waive all rights to work done and is done strictly at customers risk. You can come in to our showroom or we can fax artwork for you to proof. Rush jobs where there is not enough time for the customer to proof art will be done strictly at customers risk.
  • Art fees charged by Custom Studios is an art/use fee and we retain all rights to art designed by us for use by our customers. As long as we produce the items for our customers there is no additional art use fees, use of artwork for other purposes is restricted and needs a written waiver by us for other use, as in ads or other advertising use not reproduced by us. Customers who wish to own artwork outright can discuss buying all exclusive art rights from us.
  • Color Matching imprint colors is a $14.00 per color match charge for wearables. PMS color matching for other products will vary. You can submit a PMS color number or submit a color chip if not sure of the PMS number. Please keep in mind that when we will do our best to match the imprint color you have in mind but cannot guarantee exact color matches. First off PMS color are a offset printing ink match and not a silk screen ink match but we do have a computer program that helps us convert PMS colors to mixing silk screen colors.

Submitting Artwork

Please read the following below for what kind of artwork we need, what usually delays orders is not having artwork that is usable. Artwork that is not usable will delay your order! If in doubt call us.

  • Originals: Please when sending artwork, photos or any originals of value, send us duplicates; as we cannot be responsible for originals should they be lost or damaged.
  • Customers always ask if they can submit artwork on disk or email art to us, we say Yes but we would prefer all artwork be submitted Black & White camera ready art (Black & white PDF art is preferred as we have the least amount of trouble with this file type; TIF and EPS will work well also but depending on the program and version it was designed on sometimes causes problems, when sending artwork, send all available file types you have as it's better to have more than not enough) for the screen printing process, if more than 1 color, submit it color separated in Black & White, see example below. For example  if you have a 3 color design that is red, black & yellow. Each color should be on a separate piece and in Black print (not in the color of what it is going to be printed). The reason we prefer black & white art is that if we have problems reading the customers disk or since we use only graphic PC compatible and it's in a MAC format we are liable to have problems using it. Also many times customers disk for some reason the artwork is not there or is not readable by us. By having camera ready artwork we know we have what we need to start your job and there will no delay in getting your order done on time. A black laser print of 300 x 300 or better is usually good enough to reproduce from. You can enclose the disk with the art (a PC 1.44 or zip disk) should we need to enhance, change it or reprint it. Or need a type font from it. Always enclose the type font on the disk or email, you can find the font in your font folder on your PC  as we may not have the type font that is needed for your artwork. On a Mac you can usually find it in your system/library/font folder. We use a special graphics program that has it's own special format .GED file, but next to that we prefer a .EPS if in Illustrator version 8.0 or lower, TIF or PDF file will work as we can usually convert it to a format we need from that. Artwork submitted should have a line width of 1.5 or thicker. Anything under 1.5 cannot be guaranteed to print properly. The only exception to submitting art is when we are doing a four color process imprinting because we then output the films directly from the disk as it is less expensive and faster to it this way, in this case we can accept MAC or PC format (Photoshop works well) when doing this. When doing four color process films from disk we usually output at 55 LPI and prices for films are about $23.00 ea. for 10" x 12" size. Four color process consist of Cyan (blue), Magenta (red), Yellow and Black. Please keep in mind when doing four color process on t-shirts that additional time is needed because of film work, special plates, proofing and getting colors to print right takes time, sometimes color printing output is not definite because of what we start with and how well colors print together after films & plates are made. Those of you who wish to supply us with your own films have them output to 55 LPI and plates supplied mount them on a 305 mesh.   
  • Example of a 2 color separation is shown below. Each piece of artwork color should be in black & white regardless of what the printed color is. As you can see the blue design on the left and the red color separation next to it fits perfectly with each color. On the right is what the two colors look like when put together, there is a very slight overlay when the 2 colors butt up to each other. When in doubt and you want us to do the color separations you can submit your 1 color design and include a colored-in art piece to show where the colors go. We then can do the color separations here, there is a charge for us to do the color separations. We do not recommend printing ink on top of ink as you get ink build up and tend to lose detail when doing this.

Be sure that artwork is black & white and not in color as shown below. Color is only useable if we are doing a digital print process, for silk screen printing we need black & white art.

dreamblu.jpg (15902 bytes) + Dreamred.jpg (15480 bytes) = Dreamfu.jpg (19410 bytes)

Blue Separation                     Red Separation               Finished 2 color Job design

 

All prices and items subject to change without notice. All orders are subject to our Terms & Policies please read them.

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Copyright © 2007 CSI Chicago Inc.
Last modified: April 23, 2008