Graphics: Tips & Tricks

Oh no! My art board isn’t large enough for my graphics!

The limitation of the allowed art board in the Adobe Suite can be an issue when creating large format graphics. This is easily overcome with creating your graphics at scale. The easiest way to meet your graphics dimensional demands is to create them at 50% in size. This doubles your canvas size and should be enough to meet your demands. If not, create your graphics at 25% size. The Important thing you need to remember is that your images resolution needs to increase proportionally to the scale you have set.

For example: Normally your graphics at 100% size need 100DPI to print their best.  If you create your graphics at 50% you need to double the DPI to 200DPI because once it is printed at actual size, it will then have 100DPI as required. If you create your graphics at 25% scale, you would need to make sure your images have a DPI of 400.

It is always good to mark on your comps or PDF proofs the scale you created your graphics at in order for the production to scale them back to the perfect size during the RIP process.

For the latest Graphics Requirements and FTP upload information, go to the Skybay Creative Services section of our website Here

Watching your panel cut lines
When creating continuous panel graphics for trade show exhibit booth such as a Mirage, there more than likely will be multiple panel cuts. Try to avoid putting textual content that runs through these areas. If this is unavoidable, there are a couple of things you can do to ensure your content does not appear misaligned when the panels are cut.

Text runs through the intended panel split areas

Panels would cut through text

1. The first thing you can do is adjust your type kerning in the areas of the panel split to allow for the letters to fall on either side of the cut.
2. The second is to mark the area as a critical cut, so the printers know to start the panel cutting at this point first ensuring this first critical cut will be clean.

Adjusted text avoiding panel cuts

This will help ensure your trade show exhibit booth graphics are accurate to your branding and graphical vision. Your exhibit rental or purchase will be looking its best at your next marketing venue.