Placing Orders With Circle Graphics

As the nation's largest digital printing company, Circle Graphics strives to make your printing experience as easy as possible. Please review the general information below for information on how to place orders and how your order will flow through our factory.

Scheduling Information

To help you with your production and media planning, Circle provides very predictable and consistent turnaround on your production. We publish "standard turnarounds" that you can count on. This means that you do not have to check with us for each order to figure out when you will receive your product because you have the information at your fingertips. Please remember that while our standard turnaround times are very fast, if you do need a job faster than our standard turnaround times please notify your Account Manager and we will always try hard to accommodate your rush request at no extra expense.

Circle schedules production to meet the customer's "required receipt date". Our standard turnaround is to ship poster orders 3 business days after order and art receipt and ship vinyl orders 4 business days after receipt of artwork and order details. The typical order flow is as follows:

• Receive order and artwork on "Day One" before 2 PM MTN (it is important that we get your art with the order so that we can begin work on your project).
• Send proofs on "Day One" (or "Day Two" if art is received late in the day on "Day One").
• Customer approves proofs on "Day Two".
• Circle ships a poster order on "Day Four".
• Circle prints and ships a vinyl order on "Day Five".

Notes on Turnaround: Our Account Managers will maintain a reasonable production time on your order and will move ship dates accordingly if we experience artwork delays or proof approval delays. On very rare occasions, our daily demand for production will exceed our daily capacity and we will increase (usually just by one business day) our turnaround time from our standard.

See a graphic of our "Order Flow and Our Standard Turnaround" (PDF)

First Step: Fill Out Order Information

For your first order only, we ask that you fill out a paper version of our online order form and fax it in to us. (Please be sure to fill in all details on the order form to avoid any delay in processing.)

Complete our editable PDF order forms online (one for vinyl products and the other for paper products).

• Outdoor Advertising Poster Order Form (Editable PDF)
• Outdoor Advertising Vinyl Bulletin Order Form (Editable PDF)

Once we receive the form we will enter you into our system as a new customer and will set you up to place subsequent orders via our fantastic online ordering system, "My Circle".

My Circle Login Page

Once we enter your first order in our system manually you will receive an email "Order Confirmation" that has all of the details of your order for your review. For your subsequent online orders you will receive the same confirmation as soon as you "submit" the order to us. Please review your Order Confirmation to make sure your order information is accurate and let us know as soon as possible if you see any discrepancies.

Access our Product lists for products that can be ordered as well as our standard production times for these products.

Our Products

Second Step: Sending in Artwork and Proofing

We have several ways for you to send us your artwork:

Please Visit Our "How To Get Us Your Art" Page

After receipt of artwork we will advance your job to our prepress department to be worked. If you have requested a proof, we will send it once our prepress department has worked your job. Keep in mind that all jobs are worked with their ship/receipt dates in mind and that you will generally see a proof within approximately 24 hours of our receiving your artwork.

We require that you view a proof for all vinyl jobs -- for paper jobs, it is up to you whether or not you would like to see a proof.

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Shipping

Once all of the items on your order are boxed and the shipping labels are affixed to the package(s), we will send you an email shipping confirmation. This confirmation goes out after all of the items in the order have shipped.

Your Shipping Confirmation will provide you with tracking numbers so that you can keep an eye on your package(s) until they arrive at their destination. Please keep in mind that our factory is open 24 hours a day 7 days a week and shipping confirmations may be generated before the package has actually left our facility.

General Information on Processes and Follow-Up

We have excellent systems in place to assure that your orders are given the attention that they deserve all of the way through our facility. Some examples of this extraordinary follow-up include, but aren't limited to, the following:

1. If we receive an order and do not receive your artwork the same day, we will follow-up with you the next business day.
2. If we receive your artwork but do not receive your order the same day, we will follow-up with you the next business day.
3. If we send your proof and do not hear from you, we will follow up within 4 business hours.

All along the way, we help you keep your orders on track AND we provide you with access to your orders, order history, proofs, tracking info, etc. via My Circle. Additionally, our Account Managers make detailed notations on each customer interaction relating to an order (in the job's order tracking notes section to keep you advised).

Order Flow

The following is a listing of some of the job statuses that you may see for your job if you track it online via My Circle, as it flows through our factory.

Web Order - If you have placed a vinyl order without adding any comments to the "Order Notes" section AND your account DOES NOT have custom notes that populate every order, your order will be placed into "Web Order" status for review by your Account Manager.

Hold for Review -- If you have placed a Web Order and have added any "Order Notes" to the order OR if your account has any custom notes that are added to every order in our system, your job will stop in "Hold for Review" status for review by your Account Manager.

Art Needed -- Your order will be in this status if your artwork was not uploaded at the same time your Web Order was placed (either via the link provided at the end of order submission process or via the link in your email confirmation). You will also see this status note if you are uploading artwork to our ftp site or if you are sending your artwork on a disk.

Reorder -- If you let us know that your job is a reorder of previous artwork, your job will be in Reorder status until we pull the artwork from our archives.

Prepress -- Once your artwork is received and we determine that it is not a file that is built using our template, the job will go into our Prepress Department to be worked.

Art Hold -- If there are any problems or concerns with the artwork for your order we will put the job on "Art Hold" and contact you to resolve the issue.

Vinyl QC - Once your artwork is worked, your vinyl jobs will go into Vinyl QC status so that we can check all aspects of the job for accuracy. Only vinyl jobs will be seen in this status.

Customer Approval -- Once your proof has been sent, either via email or via overnight carrier, your job will be in this status until we receive your approval.

Print -- This status means your job is ready to be or is being printed.

Post Press -- This status means that your job has been printed and is being finished (welded if your job is a vinyl and collated if your job is paper) and prepared for shipping.

Shipped -- Once your order is boxed and the shipping label is affixed to the box the status will be Shipped. Please keep in mind that "Shipped" status means that we have prepared the package for shipment -- and does not necessarily that the package has been picked up at our facility by the shipper.

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