At North Star, our goal is to provide top quality products and personalization. High quality artwork and logos are often a very important component in achieving this goal. The following are guidelines to help ensure that the recognition products you purchase become treasured mementos of accomplishment for your recipients for years to come.
Please read this entire section. It covers all of the most common artwork questions and concerns. If you have any questions that are not answered here, simply call or e-mail us and we'll be glad to help you out.
We can work with most of the standard Windows graphic formats including:
.bmp .tif .jpg .ai .cdr .wmf and .psd among others.
Vector Files are preferred for all artwork.
Our primary artwork and layout programs are Corel Draw X3 and Adobe Photoshop v.7. We can work with anything that these programs can open or import.
We can work with files produced by most digital camera's.
Microsoft Office documents are not useable files. This includes Excel, Word and Powerpoint.
Web page graphics are rarely useable! These graphics are designed to display quickly and beautifully on a computer monitor, but are too low quality for most imprinting or engraving. These files are almost always
72 - 96 dpi and in .jpg or .gif format. High quality files in these formats, such as those produced by digital cameras are fine, but the web page versions are usually not useable. If we must work from such files, artwork charges will be added to your invoice.
We charge $25.00 per hour for artwork preparation. This is one of the lowest rates in the industry. We have found that the average low quality logo takes between one and two hours to make useable. Some take less than this, but many take even more time. Artwork preparation is charged over and above normal one time set-up charges for logos and other artwork. Once we receive your artwork file, if we find that there is significant artwork or set-up charges, relative to the number of items being personalized we will consult with you before we proceed.
If you do not have a logo or would like to have an new logo designed we have in house Graphic Artist. Our Artist can take your ideas and turn them into a professional logo suitable for the product of your choice. Once a professional logo is created we will provide you with high quality vector logo files for future use.
Solid Lines
Bright, Crisp Colours
This Logo will look great on the product of your choice
Fuzzy Lines
Muted Colours
This Logo will appear blurry and low quality on the product you choose.
Please try and provide a logo that is the approximate size it will appear on your customized product. If the logo is smaller it will need to be made larger. Depending on the type of file provided, making an image larger usually results in the image losing quality. If the quality is too poor an artwork charge may be applied to your order.
Images can be set at different resolutions. For images on the internet 72dpi is high enough quality to be easily viewed. For printing (and other processes North Star Trophies uses) 72 dpi is not high enough quality and the image will show up as seen in the example above. This is why customers should be careful about finding an image on the internet to use for their order.
An image saved at 300 dpi should appear the same on screen as it does printed. If you are in the process of ordering products from North Star and are unsure how to check if your image is 300 dpi feel free to
In general, artwork should be at least 300 dpi. Lower resolution than this usually produces unacceptable results, or requires expensive artwork time to make useable.
If possible, the artwork should be larger than the size we are going to be imprinting or engraving it at. Going from larger to smaller helps ensure a quality result.
Logo artwork to be used for diamond stylus or laser engraving should be black & white only! This means literally black and white - no shaded colors or shades of grey. Logo art that is entirely in one solid darker color, like red or blue, should also be useable. If you do not have such a file, we can do the conversion for you, however additional set-up and or artwork charges will depend on the complexity of the job and the quality of the artwork we are given to work with.
Logos and/or photo's for sublimation, or laser engraving of a photo, can be in black and white or colour.
If you do not have a high quality electronic version of your artwork or logo, we can scan from good quality printed material or photographs.
In the online ordering context, this means that after you have submitted your order, you will have to get a hard copy of your artwork to us by mail, courier or drop off at our store. Please indicate that you are doing so when you place your order online.
Good quality letterhead, some printed brochures, professionally produced pmt's, photographs and similar items are useable for scanning and reproduction.
Faxed artwork is not useable! The quality is simply too low. At one time, faxed artwork was common because the equipment we used was not much better. At North Star we are committed to providing the best quality and value in personalization. As such, we regularly update our equipment to provide the best advances in technology for our customers. Because of this, faxed artwork is no longer suitable.
Business cards are rarely useable! Only the highest quality printed business cards scan well enough for reproduction. Most people do not have these expensive high quality cards. The rest have fuzzy edges which are not obvious when you look at the business card, but become glaringly obvious when they are scanned for reproduction. If we must work from such a card, artwork charges will be added to your invoice.