The 5 LEVELS OF ART

Art is the foundation of any custom product—poor quality art results in a poor quality product. We've discovered five distinct levels of art that our clients come to us with and put them into this guide so you can self-assess where along the art process you are.

5. JUST AN Idea

You know you need "this" and maybe "that," but aren't sure what it could/should look like.

Ex. You need your company name, "Tyler's Tires & Repair" and maybe your founding year, "2020" for your automotive repair company's branded apparel.

4. AN inspired idea

You know what elements you need and have a few sources of inspiration.

Ex. You know you want a tire in the design, and also have some pictures to describe the racing, biker "look" you want to achieve.

3. Raster Art

You have a design file that ends with JPG/JPEG or PNG.

AKA "Bitmap" Art, this type of art cannot be sized up or down too much because there's a finite amount of pixels and the edges will start to look jagged.

Ex. Tyler's logo looks fine on his phone, but scaled up to 11"W for a shirt, it starts to lose it's quality.

2. Vector Art

You have a design file that ends with AI, SVG, EPS, or PDF.

This type of art can be sized up or down without any loss of quality because every point, line, curve and shape is based on mathematical formulas, think ratios.

Ex. Tyler's logo looks great at any size! Whether on a business card or billboard!

1. PRINT-READY ART

Most of the time, Vector Art is Print-Ready Art!

The distinction between the two would be that your art is "Print-Ready" if it looks exactly how you'd want it to look on the product.

Ex. Tyler has Vector Art, but wants to change "Since" to "est." and add his brand's signature red. With those edits complete, his art would be Print-Ready!

A NOTE FROM THE INDUSTRY...

You ever hear the saying, "It's just not physically possible!" Well, sometimes art contains elements that physically cannot be produced. This often happens when we take art designed for the web and try to apply it to a physical product, like a t-shirt.

Embroidery, printing, or engraving simply have physical limitations. Upon reviewing you're art, we'll let you know if there's any elements that wouldn't look or produce well and what your options are. Typically:

  • Small text, unreadable at the size it's to be produced, may be omitted or enlarged.
  • Lines or elements with less than 0.18" thickness may be omitted or thickened.
  • Gradients or "smoke" effects may be omitted or go through a half-toning process.

need help?

Email your art to ART@GreenBoltPrinting.com

We're happy to asses whether you have Raster, Vector, or Print-Ready Art, free of charge!