Thursday, February 2, 2017

Here's My Business Card, Can You Use That Picture?

The Answer Is NO!



What am I talking about? I would like to address art files and what types of files Vital Signs uses to produce signage. We can tell you that we consistently have customers who come to us for a sign(s) and want us to create the sign by using a tiny picture that has been printed on their business card. 

We get it..you are not in the business of creating art or signage as it were, so you have no clue you about the kind of art file we need to use for the process. That's okay..hopefully these guidelines will help.


First Things First




The kind of art files that we need to produce your sign(s) or graphics applications will not come from any printed item that you bring to us (Business Card, Brochure, Poster). Why? Because we need a digital file type that we are able to manipulate (increase in size, crop, etc.), when designing your sign or custom graphics application. 

The other issue we see is: Customer: Here's my design, I sketched it (or my good artist friend drew it) for my new business and this will be my new logo. As cool and creative as that is, it still creates a problem for our designers, because it is not in the correct image format. Sometimes we are able to scan a drawn image or sketch to re-create it into the type of vector image we need, but it is very dependent upon the image we receive and not all images can be made into usable file format. Not only that, it can be very time consuming and expensive to try to re-create a design. Without delving too deeply into the intricacies of art design, I will try to explain this simply.

Basically, there are two main types of image files, rastor and vector. Rastor images are more common in general, such as: jpg, gif, png and are used widely on the web. Vector graphics are common for images that will be applied to a physical product. A raster image has a specific number of pixels. When you enlarge the image file without changing the number of pixels, the image will look blurry. This happens because the math formulas stay the same rendering the same visual graphic no matter the size.

Vector Images are mathematical calculations from one point to another that form lines and shapes. If you zoom into a vector graphic it will always look the same.Vector graphics can be scaled to any size without losing quality. Vector files are the types of files we need to work with. Vital Signs accepts the following art file types: EPS, PNG, PDF and  high resolution JPEG files.


The chart I found online does a nice job of explaining art files.




When In Doubt..

Just call us. The Vital Signs Design Team is ready for your call. Whether you need some design help or just need to know what type of art files we need from you, we are happy to help! We want to make sure that your sign is pixel perfect!


Call Vital Signs For All Of Your Signage Needs!

(412) 494-3308 

www.vitalsignspgh.com


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