If you’ve already created your files for print, take a quick look at these guidelines before you place your order. It might save you time - and should help ensure your artwork is in the best possible format for print.
4 Rules for Designing the Perfect Fit:
- Make sure you've accounted for the 'bleed' in your design, filling this area with any background colours or images. Ensure all important parts of your design are kept within the safe area. (What does this mean?)
- Where possible designs featuring graphics or text should be submitted as vector based PDFs. To keep your text in vector format, we recommend applications like Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign and more recent versions of Adobe Photoshop. Please note, saving text in JPEG format could result in 'fuzzy' edges.
- When your design features a mix of photography and text, make sure your placed photographs are 300 dpi, and where possible that your final design is saved as a PDF.
- Make sure you pre-flight your PDFs using the 'Adobe PDF/X-1a' preset. This option can be found in Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign and more recent versions of Adobe Photoshop.
To set the correct colour space for your PDF, click on the 'output' option shown on the left of your screen when you select the 'Adobe PDF/X-1a' preset. In the 'colour' box, select 'Coated GRACoL 2006' from the destination dropdown.
Format
Graphics and text designs (basically, any non-photographic content) are best submitted as vector based PDFs. This will ensure your lines and text are nice and crisp. If you upload bitmap-based content (JPEGs or PNGs), there may be some fuzziness around your text.
You should also make sure that there are no cut or crop lines, all transparencies have been flattened and any fonts used are embedded, before saving your designs. For best results, we recommend using the following preset to preflight your designs: Adobe PDF/X-1a.
Size / Resolution
If you are uploading photography or non-vector artwork (e.g. JPEGs), please make sure they are no less than 96dpi (ideally at 300dpi). If your designs are a mix of photography and design, make sure the embedded photographs used are above the recommended pixel sizes.
Remember large, high-quality JPEGs will produce the best results for photography. See the table below with the minimum and recommended pixel dimensions, for each product.
| Product |
Minimum (96dpi) |
Recommended (300dpi) |
| MiniCards |
280 x 121 pixels |
874 x 378 pixels |
| Business Cards |
333 x 223 pixels |
1039 x 697 pixels |
| Postcards and Greeting Cards |
575 x 412 pixels |
1795 x 1287 pixels |
| StickerBooks |
138 x 138 pixels |
283 x 283 pixels |
| Round Stickers |
151 x 151 pixels |
472 x 472 pixels |
| Large Labels |
325 x 215 pixels |
1016 x 673 pixels |
Colour
MOO’s printers use a 4 colour ink process (CMYK). Please be aware that screen colours (RGB) may appear duller or lacking in contrast when printed.
Always preview your work in CMYK where possible.
We use public ICC profiles, so if you preview and save your files using the 'Coated GRACoL 2006' colourspace, they will not be altered by our back end processes.
Photo enhancement
Our image detection software will recognise any non-photographic content, and remove our dynamic photo enhancement. Find out how to re-apply it, or to preview your work with photo enhancement added in our photo enhancement FAQ.
Cropping
It's not widely recognised but business card sizes can vary slightly in size from country to country - and even business to business. For this reason, your cards may not fit our templates perfectly.
When you upload your old artwork and start to position it, you’ll see an indication of the 'bleed' and 'safe area'. Make sure any colour in your design fills the bleed edge-to-edge, and check that your important information is inside the safe area.
We've put together a small slide show, which explains the 'bleed', 'trim' and ‘safe area’ more clearly. It also shows common mistakes and how to avoid them.
If you need to alter the design of your card, our artwork guidelines and templates should help.
Typography / Text / Line Art
- There are some key points to remember when using text/line art in your designs:
- Make sure text is at least 8pt - very small text can look good on screen but does not print well.
- Try to keep text in bold colours, made up of one or two inks only (C, M, Y or K).
- When printing lines in a solid or dark colour, make sure they are no thinner than 0.5pt. If you're using a lighter colour, we recommend 1pt.
- Make sure all fonts are embedded or outlined.
- Save your designs using the 'Adobe PDF/X-1a' preset, where possible.
- Remove any cutting, crop or trim marks. These are applied by MOO, as we send your files to print.
If you want to try your existing design on one of our templates, head over to the artwork guidelines and templates FAQ.
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MOO for Business offers easy ordering for companies with 10+ employees
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