Artwork Files That Do Not Cause Delays
By The Velocity Wear Team
Send vector artwork wherever it exists — an AI, EPS or PDF with live paths and fonts converted to outlines. Where only a raster file exists, send it at the size it will print at 300 dpi or better, with a transparent background. Name your colours rather than leaving them to be guessed. Those three habits remove most of the back and forth that sits between a logo and a production slot.
Which file format should you send?
Vector, if you have it. A vector file describes shapes mathematically, so it can be scaled to a back print or shrunk to a cap front without losing an edge, and each element can be separated cleanly for screen printing. Practically that means an AI, an EPS, or a PDF that was exported from a drawing program rather than a screenshot dropped into one. The way that file gets turned into screens is explained on the screen printing page.
A raster file — PNG, JPG, PSD — is made of pixels and cannot be enlarged past what it contains. It is perfectly usable for a photographic or heavily textured design, which vector cannot represent anyway, and it is the normal input for direct-to-film work. It just has to arrive big enough. If your only logo is a 400-pixel PNG lifted from a website, expect to have it redrawn before anything can be printed.
What resolution is actually enough?
Think in physical size, not in pixel counts. A design that will print 25cm across needs to be 25cm across in the file at 300 dpi — roughly 3,000 pixels wide. A file that is 3,000 pixels wide but set to 72 dpi at a metre across is the same pixels doing a worse job, and it will look soft. Embroidery is more forgiving on resolution and less forgiving on detail: fine lines and small text do not survive being stitched, whatever the file says, because thread has a minimum thickness.
How do colours get matched from a file?
From a named reference, ideally. Screens are set up by mixing ink to a specified colour, and "the blue in the logo" is not a specification — a file can carry several near-identical blues that nobody can distinguish on screen. Give the reference you use in your brand guidelines and note which element it belongs to. Bear in mind that the same ink reads differently on different fabrics and different garment colours, so a match is a close approximation rather than a clone. The physical proof of that is the sample, and why a sample comes before bulk covers what to look at when it lands.
One practical note: each additional ink colour is another screen and another setup, which affects the price at lower quantities more than at higher ones. Simplifying a four-colour logo to two for a garment is a legitimate design decision, not a compromise, and it is worth having the conversation before the quote rather than after.
What goes wrong with fonts and layers?
Fonts are the single most common hold-up. If the type in your file is still live text and the studio does not have that typeface licensed and installed, it will substitute something else, and the first you will know is a mockup in the wrong letterforms. Convert type to outlines before you send. Layers matter too: keep the artwork on a transparent background rather than a white box, and flatten anything that only exists as an editing convenience. Send the placement information alongside the file — which position, how wide, measured from a fixed point like the shoulder seam — and the mockup comes back right the first time. With the file settled, the production window is 10 to 15 working days from approval, and the range it applies to is on the wholesale page.
