FAQ · artwork prep · vector and raster files · CMYK and Pantone · resolution · bleed and safe area · outlines · production hand-off

Artwork and print files for custom merch

Most of the lost days on a corporate merch order happen at the file stage, not the production stage. A vector logo opens cleanly, scales to any size, separates into spot colours and prints the same on a polo or a tote. A low-resolution PNG arrives at 72 dots per inch, the production artist requests a higher version, the buyer forwards the same file again, the deadline moves. This page covers what counts as a print-ready file, which formats the production team uses most, what resolution and color mode a physical substrate actually requires, the file errors that delay an order, and how the review cycle is sequenced when the artwork was drawn in Adobe Illustrator, exported from a brand template, generated by a tool, or produced by an image generator.

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What counts as a print-ready file

A print-ready file is one the production team can open, scale, separate into production layers and place onto a garment, a mug or a packaging substrate without first reconstructing it. For a flat logo on a polo, that means a vector master in Adobe Illustrator, Encapsulated PostScript, Portable Document Format or Scalable Vector Graphics with all text converted to outlines, all spot colours declared against a Pantone reference, no raster effects, no linked images embedded as low-resolution previews, and a defined bleed for any design that touches the edge of the substrate. A print-ready file is the difference between an order that ships in eleven business days and one that ships in twenty-six because the artwork round-trip ate the schedule.

For a continuous-tone design, a photograph, a gradient, a fine colour transition or a soft background wash, the definition of print-ready is different. Vector cannot hold that information, so the file becomes a raster: a high-resolution PNG, TIFF or layered PSD, exported at the largest physical print size required and at the resolution the method demands. Screen printing and DTG want different minimums because the way colour is reproduced is different; embroidery and engraving are different again because the file is converted to stitches or toolpaths rather than pixels. A single design submitted for two different decorations can require two different files, and the production team should be told about both applications before the artwork is locked.

The three properties a print-ready file always has are a declared color mode, a declared resolution and a defined trim. The color mode is CMYK for full-colour process, Pantone for spot, RGB for screen-only or grayscale for single-colour work. The resolution is independent of vector and explicit for raster, expressed as dots per inch at the intended output size. The trim tells the production team where the substrate ends after cutting; the bleed extends the design past the trim so a small cutting tolerance does not produce a white edge; the safe area keeps critical content inside a margin that no cut will reach. None of this is decoration. Each term solves a specific defect class, and each defect class is exactly the kind of thing that gets noticed only at final inspection when no one can rework it.

Four file formats production actually uses

Vector master

The default format for a corporate logo, a wordmark, an icon and any flat illustration. Vector describes shape by geometry rather than pixels, so the same file is sharp at 6 millimetres on a keychain pin and at 600 millimetres on a stage banner. The production team opens it, converts fonts to outlines, separates colours against declared Pantone references and exports a per-method production file. Vector masters are also the smallest files by an order of magnitude, which makes email hand-off painless and version control obvious across reorders and brand refreshes.

High-resolution raster

The default for a photograph, a rendered illustration, a complex gradient or fine detail that vector cannot describe. Raster files must arrive at the largest output size required and at the resolution the decoration method demands: screen printing at 200 to 300 dots per inch in the area, direct-to-garment at 200 to 250, dye sublimation at 150 to 200, embroidery digitised separately. The trap is sending the same file at the same size regardless of method; what reads as 200 dots per inch on a polo looks soft on a tote when scaled up to a print area three times larger.

Layered working file

The format to send when the artwork is final but the application is not yet chosen. A layered file lets the production artist hide a background layer, isolate a colour, change a Pantone reference, recolour a logo against a dark substrate or move a wordmark onto an alternate product without re-tracing anything. The cost is file size; a layered PSD with full print resolution across all layers can exceed 200 megabytes. The benefit is that one decision rarely blocks another, which matters when the order covers two products and three decoration methods.

Reference pack

The format to send when the brief is a brand standard rather than a single logo. A reference pack brings together the master logo in approved colour ways, a typography sample, a do-and-don't guide, secondary marks, the corporate colour palette with Pantone references, brand photography and any prior merch produced under the same identity. Corp-Merch reads the pack once and applies it across the order, which removes the round-trip where a marketing team is asked to confirm a font that has been the corporate font for eleven years.

Color modes and what they cost you

The four colour modes production meets are RGB, CMYK, Pantone and grayscale, and each means something specific.

RGB. Built for screens, used in nearly every digital design tool, and not a print colour space, because the additive red-green-blue primary set produces colours that a CMYK print process physically cannot mix. A logo designed in RGB will visibly shift when converted to CMYK: vivid blues lose chroma, neon greens darken, and the brand green that was a particular hex code reads as a slightly muddier green on cotton. The shift is not a defect; it is the gap between what a screen produces from light and what a printer produces from ink. Send the file in its native mode and let production convert it, unless the design was built in CMYK from the start.

CMYK. Built for process printing. Four process inks layered to reproduce a wide gamut, used in screen printing as a four-colour halftone and in direct-to-garment as the native output. CMYK is a smaller gamut than RGB, so a vivid RGB red maps onto a slightly darker CMYK red, and a photographic image looks almost right but never quite. For brand colours that must match a specific reference, CMYK is rarely the right choice. Process printing is process printing, and the result is an approximation rather than a hit.

Pantone. Built for spot printing. A named, pre-mixed ink applied to a substrate as a single colour layer. A Pantone solid is reproduced cleanly on cotton, on polyester, on packaging and on hard goods, and the same reference matches across substrates when the ink is correctly mixed and cured. Brand identities built on a Pantone palette should be ordered in Pantone references rather than converted to CMYK. The supplier delivers a colour match against the physical Pantone standard, typically within one to two Delta-E.

Grayscale. A single-colour layer drawn in black or spot colour, with no chroma information. Used for one-colour apparel prints, etchings, debossings, deboss-and-print marks and any application where the artwork is a tone rather than a colour. The production team will request grayscale for one-colour designs regardless of how the original was authored; the conversion is trivial and submitting the wrong mode adds days of rework.

The cost of sending the wrong mode is almost always a colour-roundtrip delay. The cost of sending the wrong mode against a brand book is a printed batch in the wrong colour on a substrate that cannot be reprinted cheaply. Send the source file with its declared mode and a Pantone reference where one exists, and let production build the per-method output.

Five file errors that push a deadline

The same five errors appear on the majority of artwork round-trips in this market. Each one is unambiguous to detect and unambiguous to prevent; the only reason they recur is that the corporate buyer rarely sees the production side of the process.

1. Text not converted to outlines. A logo with text left as live type arrives at production, the production artist opens it on a machine that does not own the font, the glyphs fall back to a default and the printed logo is in a different typeface. The fix is to flatten text into outlines before sending. If the brand team needs to keep the text editable, supply the font files alongside the vector master.

2. Low-resolution raster. A 72 dot-per-inch raster, the screen resolution, looks fine on screen and produces a soft, pixelated print at output size. The fix is to send a raster at the intended output size and resolution, not at the screen size; for a 200-millimetre print area at 300 dots per inch that means at least 2 360 pixels along the short edge.

3. RGB sent to a CMYK process. A logo designed in RGB with vivid brand colours produces a CMYK conversion that visibly shifts. The fix is to declare the file colour space in the file name and the brief and to send a Pantone reference where one exists so the production team uses a spot ink rather than an approximation.

4. Bleed and trim missing. A design that touches the edge of the substrate, sent without bleed, produces a thin white edge wherever the cut tolerance bites. The fix is to extend the artwork past the trim line by the substrate's bleed allowance and to keep critical content inside a safe area set inside that bleed.

5. Orientation and naming. A logo designed for a chest print, exported at landscape orientation, sent to a production artist who applies it as supplied and decorates a tote bag sideways. The fix is a labelled, oriented and named file per application, sent in a folder structure the production team can read without guessing which file goes where.

One reference pack with the master logo in declared Pantone references, a CMYK fallback for photographic artwork, fonts supplied or outlined, layered working files where the order is multi-product, and a brief that names each application by file. That combination clears the round-trip on the first pass more often than not.

Production timeline for artwork review and method matching

Receipt and triage. Day 0. Files arrive, are checked against the brief, and the production team confirms receipt and any missing assets. A simple logo in a single spot colour takes a quarter of an hour; a layered brand system across ten product lines and four methods takes half a day to reconcile against the order.
Preflight. Days 1 to 2. Each file is opened, fonts are checked or converted, color modes are read, resolution is measured against the intended output size, and a per-method recommendation is logged against the file. This is the stage where the five errors above are caught and resolved.
Method mapping. Days 2 to 3. The preflighted file is matched to each application, polo screenprint, polo embroidery, mug dye-sublimation, tote transfer, and any method that needs a different file (an embroidery tape-out, a print-ready raster for DTG) is generated here.
Customer sign-off. Days 3 to 4. A digital mock-up or a physical print panel is sent for visual approval. Corrections at this stage are typography and colour; corrections after this stage touch production and risk reschedule.
Production files. Days 4 to 6. Production-ready files are written against the approved design, screens are burned, embroidery tapes are digitised, and production starts on the agreed lead-time. Reorders skip steps 3 to 5 if the artwork was kept on file and has not been edited.

A clean artwork hand-off clears steps 1 to 3 in 48 hours and step 4 in another 24. A round-trip, a missing file, a wrong mode, a font that needed conversion, adds three to five business days per round to the front of the schedule, which is the difference between a stand delivery on the morning of an event and a stand delivery on the morning after.

Questions buyers ask about artwork and print files

What file format should I send for a logo on a polo or a tote?

A vector master is the default. Adobe Illustrator, Encapsulated PostScript, or a flattened PDF with all text converted to outlines and all fonts embedded will move through the production pipeline unchanged. If the logo was drawn in Canva, Figma, Sketch or any web-based tool, export it as an SVG or PDF at the largest available size and supply the source file alongside. PNG and JPG are accepted only when the artwork is photographic; for a flat mark they compress the edges and reduce the size the team can print cleanly.

What is the minimum resolution for a raster print file?

For screen printing, 200 to 300 dots per inch measured at the intended output size, on the actual print area. For direct-to-garment, 200 to 250. For dye sublimation on fabric, 150 to 200 is acceptable because the image is diffused by heat into the fibre. For a hard-substrate print at a small size, 300 remains the working minimum. A 72 dots-per-inch screen-resolution file is not a print file even if it looks fine on screen; it softens and pixelates at output and the order is held until a higher version is supplied.

Why does the colour of my logo look different on screen and on the printed product?

Screens emit light; printers deposit ink. A logo drawn in RGB is built for the additive red-green-blue colour set of a monitor; a CMYK print process is a subtractive cyan-magenta-yellow-black set with a smaller gamut. The shift is a property of the medium, not a defect, and the production team pre-converts the file at the preflight stage so the printed colour lands in the brand palette as closely as the decoration method allows. Where the colour must match a specific reference, a corporate identity with a named Pantone, ask the production team for a Pantone match rather than a CMYK conversion.

Is Corp-Merch affiliated with, endorsed by, or an official supplier to Adobe, Pantone, the makers of Canva or Figma, or any other software or standards body named on this page?

No. Corp-Merch is an independent B2B merchandise supplier. References to Adobe and Adobe Illustrator, Pantone and the Pantone Matching System, Canva, Figma, the EAEU customs framework and any other software vendor, file-format specification body, design tool or standard body named on this page are informational only. They imply no partnership, sponsorship, endorsement or official-supplier relationship with any of them, and no trademark or licensed asset is claimed as held by Corp-Merch.

This page is written for B2B buyers of custom merch in Armenia and the wider EAEU preparing artwork for production. Corp-Merch is an independent B2B merchandise supplier, not a design agency; the artwork review and preflight described here are part of the production hand-off, not a paid design service. Resolution and file-format guidelines are typical working ranges for the decoration methods named and will vary by substrate, ink system and product. Every order is quoted against a specific file set and a specific application, and nothing on this page is a binding technical specification until it has been confirmed in writing against the order.