When supplying your own artwork it is important to ensure it is in the correct format for the purpose. Here are some terms (and explanations) that you should know.

Bleed: This refers to the area of the image that extends beyond the finished size of the item to be printed. It allows for a slight margin of error when the items are being trimmed. The typical bleed required by commercial printers is 2mm – 5mm.

Crop Marks: These are marks printed on the sheet outside of the artwork area that show the printer where the items need to be trimmed.

File Types: A number of file types can be used for commercial printing but the preferred and most commonly used by far is PDF. This is preferred because it allows settings such as bleed and crop marks to be incorporated into the file and because the file size is often much smaller than JPEGs or some Adobe files (for example, Photoshop/Indesign) of the same quality. For large format print, Ai (Adobe Illustrator) vector files are often used, as these can be scaled to any size without losing detail.