At expresscards.com.au we can provide custom shape printing of business cards and vinyl stickers. Custom shape designs help your business stand out from the crowd, be unique and remembered by those who see it. It is a great way to keep your marketing fresh and different!
To supply us with your custom shape designs for printing please follow the following guide lines. Remember, we are only an email or phone call away if you need any help with your print setups.
STEP 1
Create your document in Indesign or Illustrator file with 5mm bleed and draw in your die line you wish to use. Below is just an example but it can be any shape you wish as long as it meets the following:
• Is a closed continuous shape
• Has no internal cut outs
Please ensure you email us your shape before purchase to ensure we can produce the outcome you are after.
STEP 2
We find having your forme / custom shape on a separate layer helps with your design and exporting out both your dieline and artwork for production. You can then have it sit on top and turn the layer on and off to see your artwork easily. Next you will need to ensure your dieline is in a “spot colour” so it will not be printed. To do this you will need to add a Spot Colour Swatch to your pallet.
Add a new swatch in your swatch pallet by right clicking and selecting “NEW COLOUR SWATCH” . Make it 100% Magenta and name the swatch “solidcut”. Now ensure that the shape you have made is in this new “solidcut” colour.
STEP 3
You will need to ensure that your forme/dieline is NOT set to knockout and instead set to Overprint. If your dieline is set to knockout, your artwork will print with a white line with the same design as your forme which is not ideal for printing. To ensure your dieline is not set to knockout you will need to open your “attributes” pallet and ensure that “overprint stroke” is ticked on your selected dieline shape.
TESTING YOUR PDF
To test that your PDF is now correct open your exported Press Ready PDF in Acrobat Pro and turn your spot channels off and on and simulate overprinting.
You will now see the following results in your PDF.
This image shows the dieline when turned on.
This image shows the dieline when turned off. As you can see it has a white outline where the magenta shape used to be. This means you have set the dieline to “knockout” and will be incorrect when printed as it will print this way too.
This image shows the dieline when turned off however it is now correct as there is no white outline where the magenta shape used to be. It means you have set your spot colour to “overprint” which is now correct to supply for printing.
For any further help please do not hesitate in contacting us and we will do our best to guide you through. If you’d like for us to create the forme path for you we can do it for a small fee of $55 and we will supply a PDF / EPS file for your safe keepings. Terms and Conditions do apply. Please note: The cost of the actual forme will be absorbed by Dynamite Express Cards and will remain the property of Dynamite Express Cards.
