Sure, you can do your own design and page layout...

First, you need to determine the method in which you need your item printed. If you just need a few, then you may want to consider digital printing. For digital printing, as long as you have your document laid out just like you need it, and as long as it looks on-screen just like you want it to look like, then most any file format will do. If you are going to need many copies (hundreds or thousands or even hundreds of thousands) of the same item, then offset printing is more cost effective and can often times result in a product which is perceived as being higher quality.

Design and typesetting for offset printing does require specific programs and a very specific set of design skills. If you are creating a simple document which you want printed in just one color, most any word processing program will do. Most word processing programs will allow you to make a multiple color document and even include screens, photographs, and a wide variety of special effects and artwork, but word processors are only designed to be output on a computer printer. Word processing programs do not have the capability to make color separations, adjust trapping, make “multiple-up” pages, make booklet form documents, adjust screen frequency and other factors which are needed for quality offset printing.

If you are interested in making a multi-color or graphics intensive document for offset printing purposes, you need to use a professional page layout program (Corel DRAW, PageMaker or Quark) to combine all of the different elements in your document. You will also need a full featured bitmap editing program (Corel Photo-Paint or Photo Shop) if you plan to use photographs, scans or any bitmap images. And if you intend on having any customized vector art in your document, a vector art program (Corel Draw or Illustrator) will be essential.

We highly recommend that you purchase the Corel Draw full package (with all the manuals - you will need them) as it has almost all the features which you may want, including a vector art program which can double as a page layout application, a full featured bitmap editing program, an excellent bitmap tracing program, a professional font management program, a large assortment of clip art, fonts, plug-ins, and basic templates. Also, for anything more than the most basic one ink color offset printed document, you need to make sure that you have a full understanding of text and graphic elements. To see if you are knowledgeable about word processing, graphic design and page layout, read the following basic page layout terms:

• Kerning
• Leading
• Tracking
• Bleed
• Style Sheet
• Bitmap Art
• Halftone
• Screen
• LPI
• DPI
• Process Color
• Spot Color
• Imposition
• Extended Character Set
• Bezier Curve
• Trapping
• Gripper
• Moire Effect
• RGB
• CYMK
• Pantone Colors
• Drop Caps
• Encapsulated PostScript
• Fill
• Stroke
• Drop Shadow
• Eyedropper
• Gradient
• Point Size
• Duotone
• Masthead
• Serif/Sans Serif
• Small Caps
• Grayscale
• Vector Art
• Crop Marks
• Process Color Separations
• Spot Color Separations
• Registration Marks

Congratulations, if you can define and understand most of these basic terms, then you are ready to start!!! I

We accept the following art files:

• Pagemaker: .PMD
• Illustrator: .AI
• Corel Draw: .CDR OR .CMX
• Ami Pro/Word Pro: .SAM OR .WPD (Digital Printing or 1 color offset printed work only)
• MS Word: .DOC OR .TXT (Digital Printing or 1 color offset printed work only, no multiple-up documents)
• MS Publisher: .PUB (Digital Printing or 1 color offset printed work only, no multiple-up
unless you “set” it multiple up)
• Properly prepared Encapsulated PostScript: .EPS
• Any of the following bitmap formats (one color only or full color only - no spot
color): .BMP, .TIF, .JPG, .JPEG, .CPT, .GIF, .PCD, .PSD, .PCX, .TGF, .IMG
• Any of the following vector art formats: .WPG, WMF, EMF, .CGM, .DRW, .AI,
.PIC, .CPX

NOTE 1: You must include all Fonts and Original Artwork as specific files and also, please embed all elements into the document.

NOTE 2: If work is to be offset printed in more than one ink color, then please use your program to print test separations prior to bringing in your file to us. When you print color separations from your file, you should have one color on each page. For instance, if you have a full color photograph, you will have a page that prints only the Black, then another page that prints only the Magenta, then another page that prints only the Cyan, and the last page would only have the Yellow. If you desire a two color job, then you should have two sheets of paper printed out: one for each color (if you find that you have more than two sheets, then you have more than two colors in your document, this means that the file is improperly prepared and you need to fix the problem prior to bringing us the file - please refer to the documentation that came with your software). If your program will not allow you to print separations, we cannot produce separations either and the job will have to be printed digitally (with toner - not ink).

NOTE 3: We recommend 1 pt. trapping spread anywhere that colors touch

NOTE 4: Do not use thin type or serif type styles when creating type reverses.Also see: