Art Guidelines

To ensure you get a great final product take the time to prepare your artwork for printing following these guidelines.

Print Ready Artwork

Print ready art must be submitted in these formats:

Vector Files – .ai .pdf .eps .svg
Raster Files – .psd .png .jpg
Raster Files must be 300dpi to print size or larger

If your art isn’t print ready

If the art is not print ready our creative department can typically recreate it at our hourly art rate. We can estimate a time frame to prepare the artwork for print. If you aren’t sure your art is print ready feel free to send it over and we can take a look.

Raster vs Vector

Raster files are made up of pixels which can not be increased in size without degrading quality, which is why we prefer vector files for screen printing and embroidery. Vector files are made up of equations making them infinitely scalable, without losing quality. Raster files must be 300dpi to print size or larger.

Outline Fonts

To open files with fonts we don’t have, you need to create outlines around the fonts. Simply right click the text and hit create outline, or expand your file in the object menu. This ensures the fonts will print how they were intended.

Include Pantone Colors

We use Pantone Solid Coated for matching colors of ink and thread to your design. To get the most accurate reproduction include the pantone colors in your file. You can easily convert a pantone color in illustrator and photoshop but it’s always recommended to check it to the physical pantone book since screens all display differently.

Minimum Font & Line Size

For the best results check your fonts are no smaller than 8pt, and lines no thinner than 1 pt. Inverse art and negative space text need even larger sizes to print well. It is helpful to print your design out to size if it has small elements to make sure they will look good when printed and legible from a distance.

Creative Services

OSI has a full graphic design department. If you don’t have artwork, or your art is not print ready, we can create or re-create for you on an hourly basis. Any artwork that is not print ready can incur an hourly art charge. From a sketch on a napkin, to editing a photo for screen print, OSI can bring your great ideas to life.

Simulated Color Separations

To reproduce photographic or full color images we must create simulated color separations. This is an additional cost from art time or screen setups to prepare the artwork for printing. Simulated Color Separations are charged per color and are typically 7-10 colors to reproduce an image.