Submission Guidelines

Engaging a professional graphic designer for assistance can sometimes be a confusing process. It is not uncommon for designers to have to go back and ask for a number of things that were missing in an original submission, or ask questions Clients may not know the answer to. These General Submission Guidelines are meant to reduce confusion as much as possible as to what is required or expected in project submissions.

For your convenience, the Submission Guidelines PDF may be downloaded for referencing offline. It includes a chart that illustrates the most common image formats people may have for submission and explains whether the chosen format can be worked with or not.

If you have any questions at all about your project, please contact me. All consultations and answers to questions are totally free of charge.

Text Submission

Text (or copy) can be submitted in the following formats: Word (.doc), WordPerfect (.wpd), Rich Text Format (.rtf), or Text-Only (.txt). Word, WordPerfect, and Rich Text Format all retain formatting as originally composed by the writer. This can be very helpful in seeing the preferred hierarchy of information, which helps in the design and final formatting of the project. For extensive book projects, a Book Submission Template has been created to facilitate formatting. Text-Only format, while acceptable, is not preferred as it strips all formatting out of the text, making it impossible to distinguish what information is important.

Whenever possible, make notes in the text file indicating picture placements or areas with special instructions. Make the text stand out somehow and please do it in a consistent way or style so it is easy to identify.

All text must be in a final approved (preferably edited) condition before submitting for formatting. Any and all text changes or replacements arising from submitting a draft are considered billable labor at the Designer's normal rate of $50 per hour.

Photo Submission

Ideally, photographs should be submitted in high resolution JPEG or Camera RAW format (on CD is preferred). The images should be at least 300dpi/ppi, or 5 megapixel or better resolution. For larger images (for posters, book covers, etc.) 7 megapixel or better is recommended. TIFF images are also acceptable and should be at least 300dpi/ppi in resolution.

Submit the photos in color (usually RGB). If the images need to be in black and white, I will convert them to black and white on my end.

If you do not have digital photos, regular photographs may be submitted for scanning. Scanning is an extra charge and the end quality depends entirely on the quality of the original photos. If there are a lot of fingerprints, scratches, etc. that need touching up, it will be considered billable labor (in addition to the base scanning charge). If the original images have poor lighting, only so much can be done to fix them. Again, that is extra billable labor.

Table Submission

If you need tables created, the best way to submit the information is either in a Word table or Excel spreadsheet. Please make sure that each separate piece of information is in its own cell.

Figure Submission

If you have a unique figure, an initial idea can be submitted in Powerpoint, Word, or Excel. To make the figure creation process faster, please refrain from pasting graphics into these applications. Rather, create the concept within one of these programs and supply me with the native file. This gives me full access to the text and objects, saving time and cost overall.

Ideas may also be submitted as sketches for further development. Sketches may be in the form of an original drawing, a PDF, or images placed in Word, Excel, or Powerpoint. This approach will be more labor intensive and cost more to produce.