FINGERS DUKE

ABOUT THE DUKE

Fingers Duke is more than your average, everyday t-shirt company. We are a full service graphic design and screen printing studio composed of dedicated artists, creatives, and craftsmen. We are committed to serving our neighbors, community, and beyond with top quality logos & marketing materials, and fast turnaround on super bitchin’ screen printed t-shirts & apparel.

DIGITAL ARTWORK

We process all of our art and print files through Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, so any files we receive must be compatible with those programs.

Vector-based artwork is usually the MVP when it comes to screen printing. Vector artwork is the best for scaling without distortion or detail loss as it is path-based instead of pixel-based. Vector art is the fastest to recolor and the easiest for us to sep out for print. Due to their ease of use, a good quality vector file is the number one way to reduce or eliminate processing costs and get your job on press as quickly as possible. But please remember, embedding your raster image in a vector file is not a way to cheat the system, or make friends with our design crew.

Raster images are any artwork that is made up of pixels instead of paths, such as photos, scanned drawings, or anything created in Photoshop or Procreate***. We can usually work off of raster files as long as certain criteria are met.

VECTOR FILE SPECS

Vector-based artwork is usually the MVP when it comes to screen printing. Vector artwork is the best for scaling without distortion or detail loss as it is path-based instead of pixel-based. Vector art is the fastest to recolor and the easiest for us to sep out for print. Due to their ease of use, a good quality vector file is the number one way to reduce or eliminate processing costs and get your job on press as quickly as possible. But please remember, embedding your raster image in a vector file is not a way to cheat the system, or make friends with our design crew.

VECTOR FILE EXTENSIONS
  • .ai (Adobe Illustrator) This is the native file type created by Illustrator.
  • .eps (Encapsulated Postscript) 
  • .pdf (Portable Document Format)*
  • .svg (Scalable Vector Graphics) We can usually open**
* While vector files can be saved as a .pdf, it is a pretty universal file format and is not guaranteed to contain any vector elements.
** These days Illustrator can usually handle opening .svg files, however, they can be problematic and are not always compatible. When in doubt, save or export a .eps file instead.

RASTER FILE SPECS

Raster images are any artwork that is made up of pixels instead of paths, such as photos, scanned drawings, or anything created in Photoshop or Procreate***. We can usually work off of raster files as long as certain criteria are met.

RASTER FILE EXTENSIONS

  • .psd (Adobe Photoshop)
  • .pdf (Portable Document Format)
  • .jpeg or .jpg (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
  • .png (Portable Network Graphic)
  • .tiff (Tag Image File Format)
CRITERIA FOR RASTER FILES:
  • High-resolution files, preferably 300-600 dpi.
  • Appropriately sized artwork, either to scale or larger than the desired print size.
  • Clean or unmerged backgrounds.
  • We prefer that artwork with multiple colors be submitted as a layered file.
***Please read our tips for setting up Photoshop and Procreate Files below

WHAT ABOUT CANVA?

  • Canva is a great free tool to make quick graphics, but unless you have Canva Pro you cannot download the proper vectors for efficient screen printing. If you have Canva Pro, export your design as an SVG. 
  • If the design is not original, you do not have permission to print it. Any assets in Canva are not licensed for resale. You can read more about their policies here. 

STUFF THAT WILL NOT WORK, SORRY.

UNACCEPTABLE FILES
  • Files from word processing software, such as MS Word, or PowerPoint, cannot be used.
  • Files from page layout software, such as QuarkXpress or Adobe PageMaker cannot be used.
  • Graphics pulled from websites at 72 dpi will not work for screen printing.
  • If you don’t own it, we don’t print it. 

HAND-RENDERED ART REQUIREMENTS

Hand-rendered or drawn line art can often be printed with a little preparation. Art needs to be scanned at a minimum of 300 dpi and works best if the lines are clean and in dark black ink. All scanned art will need to be evaluated for reproduction quality.

Pro-tip for scanning your artwork: If you want the artwork to be printed larger than the original artwork size, scan at a higher resolution such as 600 dpi.

FULL-COLOR ARTWORK

If you have full-colored fine art or a design that is heavily dependent on a lot of colors, we will need to evaluate your art to help determine the best printing solution for you. Screen printing may not be the best decoration method for your art, but we do offer high-quality full-color DTF transfers. Learn more about Direct-To-Film Transfer solutions here!

TIPS FOR SETTING UP FILES 

These tips are great to use for any program you are using. Following these tips is especially important when working in Photoshop or Procreate, as you can always make pixels smaller, but you can’t make them bigger and expect to keep the same clarity.

DESIGN TO SCALE:

    • The best Canvas size is 13×19 inches. Most large designs for adults print at 11-12 inches. So go ahead and max out the space for clarity.
    • Change settings from pixels to inches. We print in inches, and it will be easier to translate. 
    • Update your DPI to a minimum of 300. Go 400 for better results.  
    • Even if you are designing a left chest, it’s always better to design larger than smaller. We can make artwork smaller, but we cannot stretch pixel-based artwork to be larger. That is evil.

DESIGN WITH SCREEN PRINTING IN MIND:

    • Use strong, crisp line brushes. Distressed/textured linework does not translate well. Work with solid colors.
    • Avoid depending on delicate smooth shading in your designs. it will not translate well. Use chunky distressed or stippling-styled brushes to add texture as long as it’s clean and low distress. Work with solid colors. 
    • Keep your artwork layered. Line work on top, all colors separated. 
    • Keep it chunky: super fine linework or small details that are smaller than 2 points may have a hard time printing. This includes negative space.

EXPORT TO FD TEAM:

    • Illustrator: Save as an EPS, AI, or PDF! Outline all fonts, please. 
    • Procreate: Export as PDF with “Best Quality”. The file can be emailed directly to us from Procreate using the share function. The PDF will automatically separate your layers for us. So please also send a JPG of the final artwork to show us what the final flattened artwork looks like so when we layer your artwork again, we are on the same page. 
    • Photoshop: Save as a PSD with layers intact and embed your font or convert your text to outlines.