DesignFix Design Studio
Print-ready artwork
“Print-ready” is one of those phrases printers use and rarely define, because to them it is obvious. In practice it means the file meets that particular printer's requirements — which is why the most useful thing you can send us is whatever they told you.
What this covers
What we work on in print-ready artwork
Size and resolution
Artwork built at the dimensions it will actually be produced at, with enough detail to hold up there.
Colour setup
Colour prepared appropriately for the process — spot, process or otherwise — rather than left for software to guess at.
Transparency and backgrounds
Genuine transparency where the process needs it, and clean edges that survive cutting.
Bleed, trim and safe areas
Where the process involves cutting, the margins that stop a white line or a clipped letter.
Projects that fit here
Examples of the kind of thing people send us. If yours isn’t on the list, describe it anyway.
- A file returned by a printer with a list of problems nobody explained
- Artwork rebuilt at the size it is genuinely being printed
- A design laid out to a supplier's template or dieline
- A transparent-background file prepared for a transfer
- Artwork checked and corrected against a specification sheet
- One design prepared as separate files for two different processes
Who this tends to be for
Anyone given a specification they do not understand
A list of requirements is not the same as knowing how to meet it.
Businesses about to commit to a print run
The moment where finding out the file was wrong is expensive.
People whose file was rejected
Often a small structural problem rather than anything wrong with the design.
Send us your printer's requirements
We deliberately do not publish a universal specification, because there is not one. Requirements differ by process, by machine and by supplier: what a garment transfer needs is not what a litho press needs, and two suppliers using similar equipment will still ask for different things. A page confidently listing one set of numbers would be describing somebody's setup and hoping it is yours.
So the process is simple. If your printer or production provider has given you a specification, send it and the artwork is prepared to it. If they have given you a rejection with a list of problems, send that instead — it tells us exactly what to fix.
If you do not have either, tell us what is being produced, at what finished size, and by whom. We will prepare artwork that is sound in the general case and tell you clearly which points are worth confirming with them before the job runs. Where something genuinely depends on their equipment, we will say so rather than inventing a number.
The work itself is usually unglamorous and decisive: rebuilding artwork at the right size, making transparency real, defining colours properly, adding margins where things get cut, and removing whatever was quietly going to break. None of it changes the design; all of it changes whether the design survives production.
How it works
From a sentence to a finished design
- Step 1
Tell us what you need
One or two sentences is enough to start. You don't have to know what the work is called or which category it belongs in.
- Step 2
We discuss the project
We ask what we need to know — where it will be used, what size, what it has to work on — and tell you honestly what is and isn't possible.
- Step 3
Share files or references
Send the artwork you already have, a photo, a sketch, or examples of the look you're after. Files go straight into private storage.
- Step 4
You get a custom offer
A written scope and a fixed price for your project specifically. Nothing is charged and nothing is started until you accept it.
- Step 5
Approve and pay
Accepting the offer creates the order and takes you to payment. Decline it or ignore it and nothing happens.
- Step 6
We complete the design
The work runs through the same production and delivery process as every other DesignFix order, with revisions included in the scope.
What to send us
You don't need to know what to ask for
None of this is required, and a single sentence is enough to start. It's simply what tends to be useful, so a first message doesn't turn into three.
Whatever artwork you have
The file itself, however rough — an export, a screenshot, a photo of something printed, or the version a supplier rejected.
A reference or a sketch
Something you like the look of, a rough drawing, or an existing design you want the new work to sit alongside.
Where it's going
The product, the size, and the process if you know it. Print, garment, screen or sign changes what the artwork has to be.
Any specification you were given
A printer's requirements, a supplier's template, or the rejection message you received — that usually says exactly what needs fixing.
Colours and brand material
Existing brand colours, fonts or guidelines, so new work matches what you already have.
What you want changed
A sentence is enough. "Make this printable", "this needs to work on a dark shirt", "I want something like this but ours".
Questions
Common questions
Tell us what you need
Describe the project in a sentence or two. We’ll ask what we need to know, then send a written scope and a fixed price before anything is charged.