FAQs

Production:

Estimated Delivery Date

The estimated delivery date accounts for the most production time, in business days for this item plus the estimated shipping time, in business days, for the shipping option you have selected.

Saturdays, Sundays and Federal holidays are not considered business days for the purposes of production and shipping time.
For orders placed after 10:00 am Eastern Time, production time will begin on the next business day

Some printers and shipping carriers may recognize different definitions of business day and/or different sets of holidays.

You may design products online with the help of the powerful, yet easy-to-use Designer Studio or you may upload a complete design that has been created offline. While all options may not always be available for all products, the three options you will find are:

1. Browse Designs - gives you access to pre-designed templates that may be personalized and/or customized in the online Designer Studio

2. Custom Design - provides you with a blank canvas for creation of your own design using the online Designer Studio. Available tools may include selection of background colors or images, type creation and styling, line and shape drawing, import of images from online or uploaded resources.

3. Upload Design - allows you to upload a complete design that has been created offline. Help templates that provide bleed, trim and safe margins are available in a variety of popular formats to help you or your designer create a properly sized and formatted file for upload.

The papers, or stocks, presented for each product have been selected based on what is appropriate for them based on the end use of the product as well as the production processes to which it will be subject.

While the actual types and weights of stock may vary based on the product with which they are being offered, most products will, in general, have four classifications of stock:

1. Standard - the industry standard or "go-to" stock for the product.

2. Economy - a lighter weight offering that offers a value price while retaining quality.

3. Premium - a heavier weight offering that provides added durability and enhanced quality.

4. Recycled - generally made from 100% post consumer waste and equivelent in quality to Standard or Premium.

In addition to these, different specialty stocks, such as linen textures or rag bonds, may be available as appropriate.

All stocks are described in industry-standard terms regarding type, weight, color and texture in conjunction with the products with which they are presented.

The designer studio is a live, online graphic design tool where you may customize and modify product design templates, upload your own complete designs to a blank template or create a design from scratch on a blank template.

With in the design studio you may:

• Set up background colors or images
• Create, place, style and size shapes and lines
• Create, place style and size type in lines or paragraphs
• Place style and size images from an image gallery, your computer, Picasa or Flickr
• Arrange each element in layers to allow elements to appear over or under one another
• Change the placement and color of design elements in a product design template or your creation

Familiar controls and an easy-to-understand user interface provide a powerful design experince for any user regardless of experience with graphic design and layout software.

To upload an image for use in the Designer Studio, simply click the Add Image button in the left-side tool bar.

The Image Gallery will open, with a dialog box for uploading images. Click the Upload/Select Images button the the dialog box to upload images from your computer.

If you wish to use images stored in a cloud image service (Picasa, Flickr), close the dialog box with the red X in the upper right corner and click the appropriate button for the service you wish to use.

The red and green dotted lines you see on the product design template in the Designer Studio are simply guidelines to help you with the layout of your design and assure proper printing.

What appears as the outter edge of the product design template is called the bleed edge. This is the area where you want backgrounds, images, shapes and other design elements to reach when your intent is to have them go all the way, or bleed, to the finished edge of the product. The area between the bleed edge and the red dotted line is sacrificial - it will be cut off once the product is cut to final size - be sure to crop and prepare images so that there is nothing that you do not want cut off in that area.

The red dotted line is the trim margin of the product. This represents where a cuts will be made to achieve the trim size or finished size of the product.

The green dotted line is the safe margin of the product. This represents the borders within which you should keep any type or other design elements you do not want to risk being either trimmed off or too close to the finished edge of the product.

Neither the red, nor the green dotted lines will print on the finished product.

If you click on the Design Preview button, you will download a PDF proof of your design. This proof will show you the Bleed Size of the product but you will see that the red and green dotted lines are not there. You will see printers' crop, or cutting, marks at the corners in the sacrificial bleed area to help visualize the final size. These marks will be trimmed off when the finishing cuts are made by the printer. Likewise, the PROOF marking will not be on the file that is sent to the printer for production.

You may download a PDF proof by clicking the Design Preview button in the top tool bar of the Deisgner Studio.

As the PDF proof is a soft, or digital, proof it is for checking the accuracy of the layout and general design. It should not be used for assessing color fidelity or accuracy as on-screen viewing is done in a different color space (RGB) from actual printing (CMYK) and is prone to numerous variables that can impact reproduction of colors.  

Printing methods may vary and are dependent upon the product, the options specified, the quantity chosen and the printer selected.

In most cases, products printed on paper or card stock will be printed on digital presses while some printers will utilize an analog offset method.

All colors are based on an advanced four-color (CMYK) model where colors may be built using percentages of each of the four (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) colors or picked visually. Using percentages over visual selection is suggested and will help ensure color fidelity as on-screen display of colors is prone to many different variables that may impact the accuracy of what you see.

If possible, images including but not limited to; complete designs, individual artwork elements and other images, should be converted to and saved in a CMYK color space before being uploaded to ensure color fidelity with printing processes.

Uploaded files that are saved in a non-CMYK color space (RGB, Hex, any spot color library, etc.) may not produce colors as expected. Due to thier complex, continuous tone nature, stand alone digital or digitized photo files are an excpetion and may be used in thier native RGB color space.

The file sent to the printer you choose will be a press-ready PDF at a resolution of 300 dpi.

It is important that any uploaded designs, individual artwork elements or images are also at least 300 dpi in resolution and sized at 100% of the size at which they will be printed. 

The prices you see in the price calculator are the actual prices provided by the printers participating in this marketplace based on the product, quantity and options that you have specified. Consequently, just because Printer A's pricing for a specific product-quantity-option combination is the lowest, does not mean Printer A will have the lowest price if one of the variables in the combination changes. Regardless of what combination you specify, the price calculator will always show you the three lowest prices for that exact combination.

The shipping costs shown in the price calculator are based upon the Zip Code of your primary shipping address, the weight of the product and the location of the selected printer.

The shipping carriers and options shown in the price calculator reflect the choices made available by the selected printer.

Some printers may have special arrangements with a certain shipping carrier which could result in favorable shipping rates.

Please note that any changes to product specs, quantity or shipping address made after the price calculator could result in a different shipping cost at checkout.

Payments are to be made directly to the printer with whom you are placing your order.

The printer's Profile can be helpful in determining what methods of payment they accept.

Information regarding payment - including terms, methods and links to online payment portals - provided by the printer is shown at checkout and included in your invoice.

Questions regarding payments should be directed to the printer selected for the order.