Art Prep Guidelines

If you have a sample binder to work from, measure its capacity in the following manner: Open the binder and measure the inside diameter of the ring . DO NOT MEASURE THE OUTSIDE SPINE OF THE BINDER. The ring diameter will not always measure to the exact dimension. For example, a 1" ring may measure 1 1/16" but it still considered a 1" ring. Another method to determine the capacity you need is to make a mock-up binder. Take a binder and fill it with the number of sheets you anticipate using. Make sure the sheets turn easily; if they don't, you may want to consider a larger capacity. Also consider if you may be adding sheets in the future because this will also increase your binder capacity. If you are ordering index tabs as well, this will add to the capacity needed for the ring binder.

Silk-screening
Next decide what you want to have printed on your binder. Remember that screen-printing has certain limitations and many techniques used in offset printing are not suitable.

• Avoid very fine lines, both in type and in illustration.
• If your artwork has close-registration, half-tones, screen tints,* and/or bleeds, it must be approved by our art department before we can accept the order. These styles of artwork will require additional production time and may increase the cost.
• The size of the type should be no smaller than 10 point and type in reverse areas should be at least 12 point in bold capitals.

*Note: Screen tints or gradients must be in 20-60% tonal range at a 22 ¸° angle.

Offset Printing

When you are ordering any imprinted product, the shipping schedule is based on receipt of print ready artwork. We can process art created on most current graphic arts software. Send a marked-up hard copy of your artwork and indicate which version of software you have used. Always include the fonts (screen and printer). PC fonts cannot be used, so either convert them to paths/outlines or we can substitute with other fonts.

All binder dimensions must be correct and all artwork must be in place. Be sure to proofread all art copy for binders and tabs. BindersNow.Com will do our best to catch conflicting information and errors, but cannot be held responsible for misspellings or other errors in customer provided artwork. If your binder is to be printed in more than one color, vector art is preferred, using spot colors. You may experience delays on your order if the artwork is submitted in a form other than described.

Front Cover Art: Unless your art bleeds, all images should be kept at least 3/16" away from the heat seal for vinyl binders and 1/4" away from edge of cover for poly binders. If art bleeds, allow 1/4" beyond edge of the cover.
Spine Art: Unless you are ordering a binder with concealed rivets, or a D-Ring binder, locate the art for spine at least 1/4" away from the rivet centers, and 3/16" away from the heat seal (unless art bleeds).

All of the colors represented on our color charts are available from stock. Exact material swatches are available if needed as well as information on other materials.
Although there are almost unlimited colors of ink available, you should be aware of the following:

• Screen-printing inks are not completely opaque. Avoid weak colors (red and yellow) on dark vinyl or poly (black, green, etc.) This could make matching your desired ink color difficult.
• If you prefer to use a PMS ink color, please specify whether the ink is on a coated (C)or uncoated (U) stock. PMS colors are designed for offset printing on white paper and can only be used as guidelines in screen process printing. Color matches will be as close as possible but may not be exact. PMS ink color matches are an additional $40 charge per color.
• Metallic ink choices should be limited to gold and silver and cannot bleed into the heat sealed areas.
  Whenever a color match is critical, we will provide a sample on your color of material for your approval. Please allow additional time for this service. Because colors other than white may affect the imprint color we recommend the use of white vinyl if a color match is critical for your project.