Kojichu

So you have this great booth design, which to a significant part relies on graphic areas, which show your corporate identity. And now it is time to make these graphic data available for production. It is quite time and cost consuming to create these graphics data and you can save a great deal, if you provide these data in a print ready format.

In general, there are 2 categories of graphic data, pixel graphics and vector graphics. The difference is the way, the content of these images is created and saved with.

Pixel graphics contain of pixels and the resolution of these is counted in pixels = dots per inch (dpi). To show the graphics in a crisp and sharp resolution, the standard for display graphics is 100dpi. If you have a picture in your product catalogue, which is 300dpi at a size of 50x50mm, these data will suffice to be “blown up" to 150x150mm at 100dpi. Probably enough for a product panel, but to scale this image to a bigger size of say 1000x1000mm or 1x1meter, the source file needs to be either 50x50mm at 2000dpi or 333x333mm at 300dpi. For an even bigger 2x2meter graphic, the source file needs to be either 50x50mm at 4000dpi or 666x666mm at 300dpi. When digitizing (scanning) an image, please have the final size of the graphics in mind and calculate the resolution accordingly. When you outsource the scanning, please do note the desired final size and resolution.

Vector graphics have the image stored as vector data, basically areas and lines, which are defined by length, color and weight of stroke. These data scale very well and there is no worries about resolution. If graphics contain text, the fonts should be “outlined" or “vectorized" = converted into vector data as well. Outlined text can be printed from any computer, even, if this computer does not have all used fonts installed.
Color: The data need to be saved in CMYK color space. To make sure, that colors are as close as possible to the original, please always submit a color print sample with the data.

Data format: Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator are the leading applications for creating pixel and vector graphics. Therefore data saved with the file ending .psd or.ai are a safe bet. A more general format would be .eps, which also works flawlessly. For pixel only data, you can also save as .tif or .pict with jpg-compression set to best quality.