Screenprinting Artwork Requirements

All About Artwork!
Much of the artwork we receive is not “print-ready,” that being a fully vectorized image which loses no quality when resized. In fact, it’s safe to say that we rarely receive proper artwork. If you think your art is print-ready and needs no further assistance (besides resizing or proof creation, which are both complimentary services) your art must be submitted to us in one of the following formats:

.pdf, .ai, or .eps

If it turns out that your art is interpreted by us as NOT print-ready, we’ll let you know prior to our making edits. Again, 90% of the art we receive has to be edited by us in some fashion, which can take anywhere from ten minutes to four or five hours. We really REALLY love it when folks submit art that is print-ready, and we strongly encourage you to take care of artwork on your own if possible. If you have a designer friend who owes you a favor, hit ’em up!

Electronic Proof/Approval
Prior to printing we provide all clients with an electronic proof for final approval. Any changes in art placement, ink colors, or last minute artwork additions may be reviewed here (although please note that last minute revisions may cause a delay in production). Once proof is approved we should be able to begin production!

Getting your Artwork to Us
Artwork can be e-mailed to us at iconicsilkscreen@gmail.com.

Need Help?
Need artwork assistance? We’re glad to help! Our talented designers will work with you from start to finish. Whether drawing your idea from scratch or just tweaking an existing logo, we can help you achieve the best result for your needs. Our design rate is $40/hr and you can always expect a rough estimate before we ever touch your art.

Here are a few helpful tips to save you time and avoid additional artwork fees with us:

– Maximum amount of colors printed is four per print location (front of tee can be up to 10.
– within the artwork, all colors to be printed must be set to a different layer, group, or compound shape/path.
– if you have a specific Pantone (PMS) color preference, artwork must include specific Pantone numbers. If no exact PMS number, just the color name is fine. If you are super picky we recommend that you stop by in person for a press check. We are more than happy to offer this as it is most important that YOU are happy with your product.
– all elements in the image should have opacity set to 100%, unless your art includes gradient/shading. If not set to 100%, our art program will interpret lighter or gray areas as halftone dots and your art may not print properly.
– no external linked image files accepted.
– ALL text on the image must be converted into curves/outlines.
The following file formats are NOT acceptable, ever. (Ever.)
Word Document (.doc, .docx), Power Point document (.ppt, .pps), Publisher (.pub), Rich text format (.rtf), Open Office documents (.odt), GIF (.gif)
Though not ideal, the following file formats ARE accepted (with additional artwork fees to be expected).
Photoshop (.psd) files:
-image must be at print size at a resolution of no less than 300dpi
-files must be color separated into four layers or less
-each specific layer should be named by the ink color to be printed
JPEG and TIFF files:
-image must be a high resolution file, no less than 5″ and 300dpi

– expect definite artwork fees for vectorizing and color separating

Notes about text, Clipart, Stock art, and photos:

*Text in designs: in order for artwork fees to be waived, ALL text must be made into vector shapes to prevent missing fonts. If this is not possible, please provide the name of the font along with a source to acquire it (free fonts only!), otherwise we will substitute a close second in-house font.

*Clipart/Stock art: Clip art and Stock art may be accepted but are not encouraged. We do not posess a library of clipart or stock images. Artwork fees will not be waived for the inclusion of clipart or stock art.

*Photos: photographs will not print the same on garments as they will on paper – please note that we cannot guarantee photos will print as good as you expect from paper printing. Garments are a different substrate and printing on fabrics is not a perfect art this is just part of the nature of silkscreen printing