[dt24]

Hi guys,

I am in the process of just finishing my business logo i designed in Illustrator and would like to know is there anything i need to do (or any tips) in order to make it 'print-ready' and yield the best results, would 'Clean-up' or 'send layers to the back' help?

Do i need to alter any Save settings (PDF standards: PDF/X 2001 2003 2003 2007, compression, colour output) or should i just leave everything as standard?


I have used the colour 'Pantone Process Cyan U' from the Pantone Solid Uncoated colour swatch in my logo, will this be ok for print? Or should i have used a CMYK alternative? I wasn't sure which one would be best.

Your help and advice would be greatly appreciated!

Kind regards,

SORRY WRONG FORUM!

[pcbranding]

Hello. This depends how you are going to use the logo and all good designers will create a spot colour (Pantone) version AND a CMYK version of a logo where the colours lend themselves to doing so. (Logos are generally 2 or 3 colours - if they are more then they should be designed in CMYK.)

If you intend to print say, a business card then I'd set the artwork up as spot colours and issue that as either an Illustrator native file (.ai) or as an editable PDF. The printer will then match to the Pantone Matching System and you should get your card back with exactly the same colour that you specified give or take differences caused by stock/paper.
If you issue a CMYK version (a lot of printers opt for printing in CMYK as lots of jobs can be ganged up together and so everyone benefits on the price.) then the colour is obviously made up on process colours - this is fine if your colour can be reproduced, but not all Pantones can (particularly the bright, zingy ones.) and so there are sometimes differences in the final colour.

In your case, Process cyan is Process Cyan!

As for 'cleaning up' - there's not much to do. Talk to your printer if he'd prefer you to supply fonts for the purpose of printing or whether you want to simplify things by outlining them.