Customer Designed Wrap File Size dpi?

[heyskull]

I have a customer and he is determined to design the wrap onto his own vehicle.
I don't want to sound like I don't want his effort but I want to give him a list of what size and resolution of artwork I require and in what file format.

My question is what do I want to ask for?

I am only asking this as every customer who has ever came through my door saying they have artwork I have to use, has had a hefty artwork charge added to bring it up to a scale I can use and is appropriate to use on a full size vehicle.

Cheers

SC

 

[signswi]

How are we supposed to know your capabilities? 150ppi at size minimum.

You're still going to have a few hours of fixing it even if it's the correct resolution, learning to design for curved surfaces isn't something people get right on the first shot. Even with customer supplied artwork we charge for that time as it's above and beyond normal prepress.

 

[ChicagoGraphics]

150 dpi is over kill, 72 - 100 dpi at full size

 

[signswi]

I don't believe in overkill and prefer "walk up" quality on a wrap. On stuff I design in house the raster elements are at least 300ppi.

Hence my statement about how we can't know the op's situation, every shop has their own methods, quality standards and equipment limitations.

 

[heyskull]

Sorry, but trying to explain PPI is different to DPI.
The only problem is they work in DPI and explaining PPI is a head ache!

I realise I will have some designing and tweaking to do but I just want to scare them from doing it themselves.

SC

 

[JoshLoring]

My rule of thumb:
100% Vector wraps @ 1/20 scale = perfect printing
72-90 dpi Raster = Billboards viewed at 10-20' away
100-150 dpi Raster = Vehicle wraps viewed at 1-11' away
300 dpi Raster = Print media that's in your hands

You can tell a 72dpi wrap from a 100dpi wrap no matter what some D-bags tell you. It's 2012 and not 1992. Computers and software now can EASILY handle these file sizes and rendering.

 

[signswi]

My thoughts exactly Josh. A $1000 off the shelf Dell can handle designing at those resolutions. Heck for some tradeshow/point of purchase/interior graphic stuff I'll max out the raster ppi at the max print dpi of the particular printer, just because I can.

 

[SignBurst PCs]

Josh, I like your rules of thumb as they are pretty close to my own.

Not too long ago, I visited a major printer manufacturer to test these numbers. We ran many prints at different resolutions and we came up with some surprising results.

In our tests, from 3 ft away, I could not tell the difference between the 72ppi image and the 300ppi image. We used elements commonly found in vehicle wraps in the designs and some not so commonly found. From 1 ft away, I could visibly notice pixelization in text less than 1/2 inch in size on the 72 ppi prints, but honestly, if you are using text that size in your design, you probably ought to rethink your design. From the same distance, 1ft, I could not see any visible difference between the 150ppi and 300 ppi image. Although the design files between the two resolutions were obviously different, the prints were visibly identical at 1 ft. To be picky, we did scutinize the images at a distance of less than one foot (and even pulled out a magnifying glass) and there were slight differences, but definitely not worth the increased effort.

In my opinion, 72-100 is usually great for passenger vehicles.
Large trailers and buses are ideal at 72, but can dip down to 50 in a pinch.
I don't see a need to design above 150 on any vehicle.

These resolutions only apply to large format printing as obviously, you would not use these resolutions on small print items.

The DPI of the printer and PPI of the software are different animals and really have very little to do with each other. Many folks confuse the two.

 

[Circleville Signs]

Lesson #1

Unless your client is the head designer at a large firm (and even then, you may still want to heed this advice), RUN AWAY. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. RUN THE FU$* AWAY.

Trust me.

 

[dclet]

My question is what do I want to ask for?

you don't know? Sorry what business are you in?

 

[The Vector Doctor]

I don't believe in overkill and prefer "walk up" quality on a wrap. On stuff I design in house the raster elements are at least 300ppi.

Hence my statement about how we can't know the op's situation, every shop has their own methods, quality standards and equipment limitations.

Seriously? My calculations show that a 4' x 10" piece at 300dpi would be a 1.5gb file. Do you really work with such large files? That does seem too high for a vehicle wrap

 

[signswi]

Yes I do and no that's not a big file. Remember we're talking raster elements only really (as the vector will get ripped at the max dpi of the printer). Often a wrap won't have all that much raster content, but I like really smooth gradients and drop shadows. 150ppi is generally fine which is why I recommended it in the first place, I just--as I said--don't believe in overkill. If I'm not challenging myself and my equipment, why bother? There's no fun in that. Before I got into signs I was creating advertising and publications for a visual arts museum so my standards of quality are pretty high. 80% of the population might not be able to tell the difference between a 72 dpi wrap and a 150 dpi but I can, and I like to produce stuff I'm happy with. If I'm not happy I'm not motivated to do good work. If it's a showpiece wrap that you want people to walk right up and stick their eye on and go WOW, I'm going to push the RIP and design computers and go for 300 at size just like we do for tradeshow, point of purchase, etc.

We've ripped and printed files in the terabyte range before (wrapped the interior of a restaurant with panoramic photography stitched from a few hundred photos, 200ppi), throwing around a couple gb for a wrap is no big deal. Smart prepress in a PDF/X workflow speeds things up on the print end as well (pre-rendering Illustrator raster effects, etc.).

Now if only Adobe would take Illustrator 64bit and add gpu acceleration like they did to Photoshop...

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