Monday, December 22, 2008

Designer Tip: Working with large format artwork.

Five revisions in and two days late you are regretting taking this large format design project for a pop-up display or custom exhibit. It takes 15 minutes to save and you are lucky if your computer doesn't crash every half hour. Sound familiar?

If this is you, breathe... It will be alright.

A little tip is to take those large images within your artwork and save them as flatten tif files using lyz compression at 100ppi at full size. Yes, 100ppi. When it comes to large format printing 300ppi is overkill. Large format murals/prints are seen from a distance and you should be able to get away with a minimin of 70ppi.

Another thing that could help you speed up the process of your design is to not embed your images. When saving don't embed your images. Simply link them and include them with the final AI file to the printer. Embeding the file can triple the size of the artwork making everyones life a little bit more painful.

For more tips... Contact the printer who will be producing the artwork, mural or pop-up display. They should be able to help you.

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