Art Specs

QUALITY:
The quality of your imprint begins with your artwork. All orders requiring production art should include black and white line art. We recommend digitally produced art for the cleanest, sharpest imprint. Camera ready art may also be used. Your graphics designer or advertising agency can supply this proper art to you.

WHAT IS VECTOR ART:
Vector Art is a technique, not a style.

Perhaps a better term would be "vector-based art," meaning art created in a vector-based program. Vector art consists of creating paths and points in a program such as Illustrator or Freehand. The program keeps track of the relationships between these points and paths. Vectors are any scaleable objects that keeps their proportions and quality when sized up or down. They're defined as solid objects, and can be moved around in full, or grouped together with other objects. Vectors can be defined by mathematical and numeric data. So vector art is anything that's created in Illustrator, Freehand, Corel Draw, Flash or other "vector" illustration programs.

(Vector programs: Illustrator, Freehand, Corel Draw, Flash, etc.)

The other side of the coin is raster art. Raster art consists of pixel information, where every pixel is assigned a RGB or CMYK value. This can create smoother and more detailed images for photos and paintings, but if the image is scaled, the program has to create new information resulting in that distorted look.

(Raster programs: Photoshop, Painter, Fireworks, MS Paint, Gimp, etc.)

WHAT IS NOT VECTOR ART:
Just because something is "cell shaded" or "flat colored" does not make it a Vector. The use of filters (cutout, etc.) creates a raster-based image and thus is disqualified from ever being considered a vector image. Only a vector program such as the ones mentioned above can create a vector image.

A vector takes time to create. The artist makes decisions on how much or how little detail to include. The artist makes decisions on colors to use. These are the same decisions one makes before sitting down with conte crayons, pastels or oil paint.

I understand that these days there is some program overlap. Photoshop has some vector tools and Illustrator has some raster tools, but if you use the lasso and the paint bucket, you are not creating vector-based artwork. If you run a filter you are not creating vector-based artwork.

DIGITAL ART:
(also known as electronic art) Digital art can be sent via e-mail, 3.5" disk, zip disk and CD-ROM. PC or MAC. For best results, create your art as vector art in Corel Draw or Adobe Illustrator, save as an EPS (encapsulated postscript). Convert your fonts to curves in Corel Draw. Convert your fonts to outlines in Adobe Illustrator. We will need multicolor imprints in this format.

CAMERA READY ART:
This art is usually a laser print with a resolution of 600 dpi or more. Camera ready art is black and white with no halftones or screens. We would prefer only single color imprints when dealing with camera ready art. We do not accept faxes or copies of faxes for camera ready art.

MULTI-COLOR ART:
J.I.T. prefers to preview all multicolor art before acceptance of purchase order. Some "tight" registrations and small text outlines may not produce acceptable results on some of our products. Currently, the maximum color imprint is 4 spot colors.

PROOFS:
J.I.T. provides faxed paper proofs or e-mailed virtual proofs at no charge. Actual product proofs are available. Please contact the sales department regarding pricing on all product proof questions.

GUIDELINES:
In order to give you the highest quality imprint, we have developed some artwork guidelines, which include minimum line weights, minimum font sizes, etc. Artwork not conforming to these guidelines could delay order based on artwork received. We reserve the right to modify your art if it does not meet these quality standards.