As a designer, I often have to work with many different types of file formats. Because I spend most of my days lost in a world of graphics and applications, I often forget that all of these different types of file formats can be quite overwhelming and confusing for some of my clients who may have little to no computer experience. Every now and then, I receive a flustered phone call from one of my clients exclaiming that they don’t understand the difference between different file formats or that they don’t know which file format to supply to their printer. I want to take a few minutes to

There are a lot of different factors that you need to take into consideration when you are preparing your designs for print. You need to consider which files your printer will need, the fonts and colours used in your files as well as many other factors involved in the printing process. One very important element that you also need to think about is bleed. What is bleed? Bleed is a word that you may have already heard used at the printers. Bleed is actually a fairly straightforward concept however, you would be surprised at how often it is misunderstood. Bleed is fairly difficult to explain p

So, you’ve created a logo design or you’ve purchased a logo template from Pixellogo.com and now, you would like to have your logo design printed on your business cards and stationery designs. How do you choose a printer? What questions should you ask a printer before giving them your project to print? Sending a project to print can be very stressful and confusing. Many of our customers here at Pixellogo ask us these very same types of questions when it comes time for them to print the logo templates or business cards that they have purchased from us. Today, I am going to try to relieve som

So, you’ve finished creating your logo design, business cards, stationery design, poster art or magazine and now, you need to have it printed. You understand the differences between digital printing and offset printing because you read my post, Digital vs. Offset Printing, but you’re still a little confused. Which is the best printing process for you project? Is there a checklist that can help you make your decision? There is now. Below is a list of 4 questions that you should ask yourself when you are trying to decide which process, digital or offset, is best for you: 1. What are yo

In the past, when someone wanted to have something printed, the decision was fairly straightforward. Offset printing was often the clear and natural choice for most printing jobs. In the past decade however, interest in and the rising availability of digital printing has started to make the choice more difficult. There has been an explosion of new digital printing companies on the internet which, while providing people with more printing options, has only added to the confusion. Many people do not actually understand the differences between these offset and digital printing and thus, they are

At Pixellogo, we sell a lot of logo design templates to our customers every day. Many of our clients are new to the printing-side of things and we find that they often ask us the same questions: "Why doesn't my printed logo design look like the PDF that I saw on my screen?" and "What is the difference between RGB, CMYK and Pantone colour modes?” Regardless of whether you want to print a logo design on your business cards or whether you are choosing a template design for the web, you should have a good understanding of the 3 color models that we use every day: RGB, CMYK and Pantone. Hopefu

What is a raster (bitmap) graphic? A raster graphic or image is made up of pixels. Pixels are small squares of information. In order to understand what a raster graphic is, imagine a large grid that is made up of many squares (pixels) of all the same size (see image below). If you put a different colour in each square and then, you back away from the grid, the individual squares blend together to make up a picture. This is a raster graphic or bitmap graphic. Raster graphics are wonderful for rich, full-colour images such as photographs.  Raster graphics are rendered images on a pixel-by-pixel