Merch Field Guide
Straight explanations of print techniques, materials, finishes and production realities - so you can brief, budget and approve with confidence.
Pantone is a spot colour system used when a brand colour has to be exact - one premixed ink, printed flat on its own. It sits beside CMYK, the four-ink process build that handles continuous tone. An exact logo colour is matched to a Pantone reference at file intake.
File format is the container your artwork comes in. A vector file - .ai, .eps, .pdf - is the safe default for a logo or text because it stays sharp at any size; a raster file fits photos. Send vector for shapes and logo, raster for photo.
DPI is the number of pixels or dots in an inch of an image. A raster file for print needs enough pixels at the final print size - roughly 300 DPI is the working standard, and a low-DPI web image is never enough.
RGB is the colour of a screen, made by mixing light; CMYK is the colour of print, built from four inks. A file meant to print carries CMYK, and the conversion from screen colour is part of getting it print-ready.
Crop marks, sometimes called trim marks or cut marks, are the small tick lines that show where the printed sheet is trimmed around the finished item, and they sit with the bleed so the cut lands inside the printed area.
Bleed is the extra area of artwork that extends past the cut line, so the colour and print reach the very edge of the item with no white line. No bleed, a printed edge that should reach the item's edge arrives with a thin unprinted border. It is a normal part of a print-ready file.
Vector is the right format for logos - it scales to any size without losing sharpness. Raster images (photos, screenshots) have a fixed pixel count and need enough resolution at the final print size. Send text as curves or with the font; a wrong file is fixable, not a dead end.
