Custom Self-Launch Guide: Part One (Creating Your Artwork)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Templates

Layers

Text

Fonts

Colors

Photos

Rasterized Artwork

Legibility

File Size

File Checklist

Templates

Please use the link below to download templates. For non-Challenge-winning designs, you will only be designing for an A7, A2, or minicard front and backer. You can also download templates in the Custom Self-Launch tool using the “download templates” link.

Download templates here!

*Note: All final files should be saved down to Adobe Illustrator CS6 or earlier to be accepted by Custom Self-Launch. To do this in Illustrator, go to File > Save As > save as Illustrator file > select "Illustrator CS6" from the dropdown.

Layers

It is imperative to place design elements in the appropriate layers so that our system can successfully convert them into a customizable design. If you don’t have a design element for every layer, please leave it blank. Please also ensure all layers are unlocked (except for guides) prior to uploading files. DO NOT change the order of the layers!

Guide to Layers

Example of layer panel in Illustrator.

text: Place editable text on this layer. movable: Place elements here that you would like to be movable by the customer. Elements grouped together will be one movable object. foreground: Place artwork here if it should be positioned on top of any customizable photos and below customizable text. This includes textures or gradients. photo: Place all customer editable photos on this layer. background: Place all non-editable artwork on this layer. This should sit beneath editable content like text and photos. guides: Guides help you position artwork at a safe distance from the edge of the card or indicate where logos will be placed. Please leave this layer locked and do not edit elements on this layer.

 

Text

Guide to Text
“McCallisters” text box is extended to touch the right and bottom safety guides in order to accommodate longer text. Text with different attributes are in separate textboxes.	Add small strokes when necessary (i.e., script fonts, light text on dark backgrounds, fonts with thin lines). Editable text should not be grouped with any other artwork. Keep text editable whenever possible. Content should be consistent between the text and photo(s) (e.g. number of kids in the photo should match the number of kids' names) If your design includes a monogram or initials, make sure the textbox is large enough to accommodate the widest letter, “W”. Try to keep case consistent for each text style employed in your design.
Formatting Text Boxes Lay out your text using text boxes (click and drag a box with the type tool, then enter text), rather than type on a path (just clicking and typing). Extend the boundaries of your text boxes to leave as much space as possible for a customer to write longer names, dates or additional lines of text in your text boxes. Each text box should only use one font/size/color/ leading/tracking. If you need to change to a different typeface, size, color, etc., create a new text box. If you want the line of text to be the same text box, the font, font style, color, and character settings MUST be the same. Make sure to use a hard return to separate multiple lines of text (i.e. address lines). An easy way to tell if a text box has more than one text attribute is with empty fields in the character panel.	When a text box is selected in Illustrator, the character palette should not show any empty fields.
Helpful tip! Check out this video for a tutorial on best practices for text.

Fonts

Reference the Minted Font List for minimum font sizes and stroke guidelines to ensure legibility when printed. If you use a font not on the list, you will need to replace it with a Minted font once you have uploaded your file.

Guide to Fonts
Glyphs: Glyphs or alternate/special characters are not currently supported as editable text. However, movable glyphs are fine to use!  To accommodate the customizer limitations, the text can be split from the flourishes. This allows you to keep the flourish-y glyphs in the design while providing customers the flexibility to customize the text. To do this, outline glyphs and move them to the movable layer.
Example of custom text used as a clipping path. This would NOT work in our customizer. Example of pattern swatch applied to the fill of customizable text. This would NOT work in our customizer.	Note! Our customizer currently does not accept the following: Effects to editable text - such as warped text. Customizable text used as clipping paths. Text on a path (unless it's a curvilinear path). Pattern or texture swatches applied to text fill.
Things to check before launching: Be culturally sensitive (i.e. verify a bible verse is correct, avoid yellow Jewish stars, etc.) Check spelling and make sure there are no typos! Illustrator includes a “Check Spelling...” command in the “Edit” menu.
Helpful font resources: Using Minted & Non-Minted Fonts (video) Can I use non-Minted fonts?

 

Colors

Guide to Colors & Colorways
Creating Colorways Selecting & designing colorways is an important step to ensure your design will appeal to a wide range of customers. Try to provide a variety of colors between colorways (i.e., avoid two pink colorways or an inversion of the same colors). Customers want choices and variety! Include masculine colorway options as well as a mix of dark and light colors. For Holiday designs, consider using traditional colors like red and green (even if you pair them with other non-traditional colors. The template files are set up to use CMYK colors; please do not change this.	A sample colorway (Colorway A) + 2 alternate colorways. Card featured: Moonlit by Alethea and Ruth
Avoiding Shifting in Alternate Colorways When creating alternate colorways, it is best to first fully design all of the pieces of your main (“A”) colorway. Next, duplicate these files and recolor them using the recolor artwork tool in Illustrator. Recoloring from the A colorway is the best way to avoid shifting between colorways. To create colorways in Illustrator using the Recoloring Tool, or using Photoshop to create a recolorable .tiff image, follow the steps in this article.

 

Photos

Guide to Using Photos
Photo Tips Customer-editable photos should be placed on the “photos” layer; otherwise, they will be ignored by our automated system. Photos should not be grouped with any other artwork. Instead, all photos should be in their own clip group. Use the same photo(s) across all colorways. Any raster artwork in the photos layer will be treated like a custom photo, so please make sure that non-photo raster artwork (jpgs, pngs, tiffs, etc.) is placed on the foreground or background layer. Only Minted provided and/or approved photos can be used. Find high resolution Minted Photo Kits here. Do not use outside stock photos for your designs!	Example of correct setup of multiple photos.
	Using Minted Gradients Use a gradient if you have light/fine text on the top or bottom of your photo (and don’t think text will be legible on a majority of customer photos). Gradients are colorway-specific, so do not feel the need to include in all colorways. Gradients are usually best on full-bleed photo designs with light, text-heavy design elements. Place gradients on the foreground layer in your templates to ensure it works properly in our customizer. DO NOT rasterize or flatten gradients with your photo! Use only the Minted-approved gradients in your files, which can be found in the template download link above.

 

Rasterized Artwork

Rasterized Artwork Tips

Example of linking and embedding an image.

Rasterized artwork needs to be linked and embedded. Ensure resolution is high enough to not look pixelated when printed. There is no need for the PPI to be higher than 300. You can check the effective resolution/PPI of artwork placed in your files by checking the “Links” panel in Illustrator. (The “Links” panel can be found in the “Window” Menu.) To reduce PPI, you can “re-rasterize” large placed images using the Object > Rasterize menu option, and choose 300 DPI. This will decrease file size dramatically without any decrease in print quality.

 

Legibility

Textures & Effects:

• Print out designs that include textures to ensure that the textures appear well when printed and are not viewed as a printing error.

Color: 

• Print out all items with light colors to test their legibility (CMYK values that add up to 10 or less may not be legible). Light colors can often appear darker on screen.
• Ensure all items in the same colorway have consistent color builds.

File Size

Reducing the file size will help our system process your files more quickly and result in a better customer experience once your product is live on the site.

Helpful tips for reducing file size:

• Re-rasterize images that are higher than 300 DPI (Object > Rasterize).
• Reduce amount of points in complex paths without changing the appearance of your design (Object > Path > Simplify).
• Crop any images that extend unnecessarily far off the artboard to the necessary size in Photoshop.

File Checklist

Use this consolidated checklist when reviewing your files before launching.

Ready to proceed to the next step? Click here for Part Two of our custom self-launch guide: launching your design!