Email all artwork to your sales representative! (up to 15MB)

If artwork files are too large to email please send a CD or DVD. (Mac or PC format)
If an FTP Site is available, please send your sales rep the host, user id and password.

Keep these design guidelines in mind:
1. To achieve good contrast your screen values should have a 20% difference.
2. Screens can range from 100-4%. This includes gradients & blends.
3. Line thickness should be a minimum of .5 of a point.
4. Type should not be made up of more than 2 colors. Minimum of 3pt for solid text.
Minimum of 6pt for a reverse (white text). Thin reverse text or serif type may not print.
It could fill in with the surrounding color.
5. Avoid thin borders. Artwork that is too close to the edges of the ticket run a risk of being cut off.
6. There is a dot gain when printed on thermal material. This means a 20% screen may appear to print as dark as 40% (the darker the color the greater the gain) 85%-99% screens may appear solid.
7. Worldwide strives to produce tickets that are 100% faithful to color from the submitted files and approved artwork. 4 color process files will print within a + or - 10% of the file’s color. Specified spot colors within the Pantone Matching system are the only way to guarantee a color match.

SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR SUBMITTING ARTWORK:

*Vector Line Art is always preferred over Pixel Images*

If your file is created using Illustrator (Vector Line Art)
1. Please submit your Illustrator file as an .eps or .ai file at the ticket size ordered. Please include an 1/8” of bleed around all 4 sides of the ticket.
2. You must include all fonts used in your file or convert your file to outlines.
3. If quoted for PMS colors (vs. 4-color process) please submit artwork in that way.
4. Text should only be used in Illustrator or Quark, if at all possible. Not Photoshop.

If your design file is created using Photoshop (Pixel Image)
1. Please submit your artwork as a layered .psd or .tiff file ATLEAST 300dpi.
2. All images/pictures should be CMYK, Multi-Channel, or Grayscale; no RGB files.
3. File must be sent at the size it will be used. Include 1/8” of bleed around all 4 sides of ticket.
4. Please include your original layered file! Please use text in Illustrator or Quark.

If you are using QuarkXPress or InDesign, please collect your file!
Collected = Pictures folder (include your layered image files) and Fonts folder.

We also prefer you send a .pdf as an additional layout guide. Please include original artwork
files individually for production purposes.

THERMAL PRINTING CONSIDERATIONS & TERM DESCRIPTIONS

Dot Gain: Printing on thermal materials involves printing plates made out of a photo polymer. This material has a little flexibility to it unlike plates used in offset. The more pressure that is placed on the substrate the more ink lays down resulting in spread. This is an aspect of this type of printing that cannot be avoided. It is in the nature of thermal printing. This kind of spread is called dot gain. It also happens in offset printing but is not nearly as apparent. Lighter colors appear to have less gain than darker ones. You can expect to see a darker image if this is not compensated for.

At Worldwide Ticket, we compensate for this gain in color by adjusting the files submitted by the client. 4 color process and spots are both affected. There is dot gain from your file to the film (minimal), from the film to the plates and from the plates to the paper (which is uncoated so it absorbs ink and spreads as well). All of these incremental gains in the size of the dots typically add to around a 15% difference in perceived color. We advise that the files submitted have good contrast (30% or more) so that the subtleties of the design can be pulled out a bit more and be visible. From this perspective, you can see that a file produced with 85% to 100% ink coverage can appear as a 100% block of color.

Minimum Dot: Another consideration on design involves a minimum dot. Plates go through a scrubbing process in order to leave the dots that will be printed in your design. Plates are created by exposing the polymer material to light through the film which hardens the plate. That is followed by a chemical bath with brushes that scrub away the areas not exposed to the light leaving your design. There is a 2% threshold of dots that will completely disappear if they are implemented in the design. Any color screened to lower than 2% will be completely scrubbed off the printing plate and therefore off of your design. This affects things like glows, gradients, drop shadows, screened 4 color process images and soft transitions from one color to another. Dot gain in combination with this “drop out” results in harsh transitions. See the example to the right.

Worldwide may be able to keep these designs intact because of the file manipulation that we do to prepare your job. This should be evaluated before finalizing your design.

4 Color Process vs. Spot Colors: Logos and art work in spot colors is the preferred format in which to produce your tickets. Tickets using the Pantone Matching System using 100% color density are the only ones that can be guaranteed a color match. Dot gain will affect screens and usually appears rough. Because of this, Worldwide may mix an ink that matches a screen value of specified Pantone colors in your design. It produces a better looking ticket for you.

Spot colors work best in graphics that are made up of solid and screened shapes. 4 color process works best in images.

Screen vs. Solid: Screens are not made up of a lightening of the ink but rather dots that allow the substrate color to show in between them. So 20% color is a 100% ink on dots that cover 20% of the surface. Any screen whether in 4 color process or a Pms color is subject to dot gain, which adds ink to the edge of the dots and adds to the perception of more coverage. Solid ink coverage or 100% coverage is the only way that can guarantee a color match.

Vector vs. Raster: Pixels (Raster) make up photos and most files produced in image editing programs. Vector files are typically logos, line art and text. These are files generated using mathematics to calculate shapes colors and forms. Vector files are almost always more efficient and create sharp lines for your artwork making this format the choice when at all possible. Providing logos and text from an image editor can result in fuzzy edges along any lines that should be crisp. If you only have access to Raster images for your logos, please supply the file at the highest resolution possible. This will give us a good starting point from which to produce your job.

File formats: Worldwide accepts a wide range of formats, including psd, photoshop eps, tiff, bmp, jpg, ai, vector eps. We will try to work with what you provide and will advise you of any issues arising in your job. Images in Word documents and Publisher files may or may not work. These programs are not graphic standards and results are often unexpected.

Text can be typed and included in an e-mail as well as a Word file or notepad file. If you have the ability to create artwork from your text, please do so as this eliminates the need for fonts and saves time on your job.

Plate Gap: There is a 1/16th of an inch space on the right side of every other ticket. This is caused by the plates that wrap around the printing cylinder where the thickness of the plate causes the printing surface to spread out. So when you wrap the plate around the cylinder and the edges meet, you will still have a space where the printing surface will not. You can take into account for this in your layout by not allowing your artwork to extend all the way horizontally to both ends of you ticket design. Layouts with borders and images that extend across the entire surface will be affected.

Sponsors: You can spread sponsors across as many tickets as there are on the plate. A typical 2 x 5.5 inch ticket will run with 10 repeat images in the printing plate, therefore you can run 10 separate sponsors (one in each spot). You can also run combinations of ads depending on your sponsorship needs. See the example below or talk to your sales representative for more information.

• Thermal Artwork Specifications
• Download this page as a PDF