Designing your own guitar pick (custom printing).

To keep the low prices, we need to get your artwork and put it into production without to much hazzle. 
Image files that don't meet our specifications will not only give us more work but it will also delay your order.

Here are some usefull stuff. Please read this information before you order your custom printed guitar picks. If you have questions, ask before you place the order.

Introduction - How it works - Limitations - What to avoid - What to think of - Font that we suggest (which we have, and may use for your text) - Suggested fonts - Symbols - Suggested software - Examples

How it works

Pickfactory use a printing method called Hot (Foil) Stamping. It's done by pressing a heated printplate trough a color foil onto the guitar pick. The high temperature and pressure activates the glue on the color foil, and it's glued onto the surface. This is a durable print.

Limitations

Hot Stamping is a old and know print method, especially known for printing paper, leather (wedding and photo albums) and guitar picks. But there are some limitations. Even if artwork are made digitally, there are no spesifications regarding DPI (dots per inches) so it's hard to tell you how good it get's. To get a clue, look at the online gallery. These images are only scanned, but you will see enough examples to determine how to design your own pick. Remember, the most common mistake is designing to small details, to thin lines. Hairstraw details will not only make it hard or impossible to print, but the print may also look dotted or not show properly.

What to avoid

• Avoid small fonts, we can print pretty small letters if we use Arial font. Other fonts may be to dense or to thin.
• Avoid very thin lines. It may become dotted or not showing at all.
• Avoid very large total print surface (often refered to as "negative" prints).

What to think of

• If you want just text, use quotation marks to separate the printable text from the rest. Sometimes it's hard to figure out which word we should print and not.
• Do not resize the template. It must be 1261x935 pixels, 72 pixels per inch (dpi).
• Do not include any other colors than black in the template, black gets printed with the color you choose when ordering, onto the color of the pick you order.
• Do not send files Photoshop, Word or Powerpoint files. Jpg, Bmp, and Gif works best for us. You don't need to zip them, but feel free to use 10-15% compression.
• Feel free to download and use our templates.

Suggested fonts (some of the fonts we have)

Other sources for free fonts fonts

http://www.fontparadise.com/

http://www.1001freefonts.com/

Symbols

At your computer (MS Windows), you have 2 fonts called webdings and wingdings. They contains lot's of symbols. A few examples:

Suggested software

If you don't have Adobe software, Paint Shop Pro is a great software for images. Whatever you do, DO NOT USE MSWord or MSPowerPoint. It will guaranteed mess up the fonts and placement.

Examples
Click on each image to make it larger. We added some notes (red) about each design, some are ok some are not. Looking at these images will make you understand more about the limitations of this print method.