Artwork Preparation Guidelines

We have detailed the art preparation guidelines for our most popular items on this page. For more detailed art preparation guidelines by specific product, please visit Our Products section to review important art information by item.

Flex Vinyl Bulletins

There are two sizes we will need to know in order to produce your flex vinyl bulletins; Live and Finished. View an illustration (PDF) that describes these two dimensions.

General Guidelines For All Flex Vinyl Bulletins

• Please use the U.S. Web Coated (SWOP)v2 profile.
• When assigning PMS builds please use the Pantone Solid to Process library.
• Do not add a rule line around the design unless you want it to print on the final poster.
• Please save your file as a flattened TIF using LZW compression. There is NO need to use additional compression software such as WinZip or Stuffit when uploading your files.
• Always use the three character extension of ".tif" at the end of your file name, even Mac users.

Photoshop Templates: All of these templates use our standard bleed of 6 inches per side. The guidelines in the templates indicate the Live area.

Please note when you click the link below, a download screen will open and you will be asked to Save or Open the selected file. Please click Save, and select the hard disk location of your choice. Once the file has been downloaded, open the *.TIF template file using your image authoring program of choice.

If you do not see a template for the size you need, please email us at prepress@circlegraphicsonline.com and we will be happy to send you one.

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Paper Posters

General Guidelines For All Paper Posters

• Please use the U.S. Web Coated (SWOP)v2 profile.
• When assigning PMS builds please use the Pantone Solid to Process library.
• There is NO bleed to this poster. Imagery can go to the edge of the template.
• Do not add a rule line around the design unless you want it to print on the final poster.
• Please save your file as a flattened TIF using LZW compression. There is NO need to use additional compression software such as WinZip or Stuffit when uploading your files.
• Always use the three character extension of ".tif" at the end of your file name, even Mac users.
• Templates are designed to produce the highest quality text. Original photos should be at least 300 ppi before placing them into the template.

Please note when you click the link below, a download screen will open and you will be asked to Save or Open the selected file. Please click Save, and select the hard disk location of your choice. Once the file has been downloaded, open the *.TIF template file using your image authoring program of choice.

30 Sheet Poster Size: 10'5" x 22'8" Template: 30_Sheet_Template.tif (9.1" x 4.2" @ 720 ppi)

8 Sheet Poster Size: 5' x 11' Template: 8_Sheet_Template.tif (7.571" x 3.429" @ 420 ppi)

Please note: 720 ppi is our recommendation for optimal output. We realize that due to upload constraints you might not want your file this large. We will certainly accept your down-sampled template; however, please do not downsample to a resolution lower than 350 ppi.   Please call Matt Lautemann, our Director of Prepress, with any questions or concerns at 303-532-2370.

Circle Graphic proudly supports all current versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDraw, QuarkXPress, PageMaker, InDesign, and Acrobat.

Adobe Photoshop (preferred)

Please flatten and rasterize all type layers.

Drawing applications (Corel Draw, Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand)

Please embed ALL links and convert all fonts to outlines or curves.

Page layout applications (QuarkXPress, Adobe PageMaker, Adobe InDesign)

When submitting artwork in programs, other than a Circle Graphics template, we do request that you continue to compress the files into one archive using Stuffit for Macintosh users and WinZip for Windows users. This helps maintain the file's integrity and prevents fonts from getting corrupted during upload.

If you already have an order number, using that number in the name helps to identify where that artwork belongs. For example: "110123.zip".

If you do not have an order number, use a brief description of the artwork in the name. For example: "MidwayTravel.zip".

Upload your file archive here.

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