What’s the Difference Between File Types?

Ever wondered when you should use a JPEG instead of a PNG? Unless you’re specifically trained in graphic design, the differences between the different image and artwork file types aren’t always common knowledge.

Here’s a quick definition of the most popular file formats we accept and when you might use them.

JPEG (or JPG) – Joint Photographic Experts Group

This is probably the most common file type across the web! JPEG files are commonly used for high-quality printing, but it’s important to make sure you save these files as high resolution (we recommend at least 300dpi). 

PDF – Portable Document Format

If you’re using an Adobe design program like InDesign to create your artwork, the best way to save your file is as a PDF. They were created with the goal of capturing and reviewing rich information from any application, on any computer, with anyone, anywhere – making them a universal option.

PNG – Portable Network Graphics

PNGs are great for interactive documents like web pages – you can edit them and they don’t lose quality! However, they tend not to be very high quality to begin with, meaning they’re not always suitable for print. You can save PNG files with a transparent background, which is perfect for T-shirts. This file is always in RGB colour format, meaning colours may slightly change when printed.

EPS – Encapsulated Postscript

EPS is a high-resolution vector file format that’s designed to be used for high-quality printing. It works in a similar way to a PDF but doesn’t necessarily need you to use an Adobe product to use it, making it perfect for designers who use alternative tools like Corel Draw or Quark.

TIFF – Tagged Image File

No matter how many times you copy and re-save this image file type, the resolution stays the same. TIFF files are also commonly used when saving photographs for print. TIFF files are significantly larger than JPEGs, meaning you would have to email this file type into us or send it online via WeTransfer.

DOC

This is the standard file format for Microsoft Word documents. Although we do accept this file type over email, you can usually save this kind of file as a PDF by going to Save As and choosing PDF, which embeds your fonts and reduces the risk of anything changing when we open it up on our end. This file is always in RGB colour format, meaning colours may slightly change when printed. 

PPT

This is the standard file format for Microsoft PowerPoint documents. As above, we recommend saving this kind of document as a PDF, but we can accept it as it is if you send it over email. This file is always in RGB colour format, meaning colours may slightly change when printed. 

PUB

This is the standard file format for Microsoft Publisher documents. Like with the two previous examples, we recommend saving as a PDF but will accept it in its original format via email. This file is always in RGB colour format, meaning colours may slightly change when printed.

Value Added Tax Explained

Who’d have thought three little letters could cause such confusion? VAT, or Value Added Tax, is a tax paid by retailers nearly every time they make a sale, including print sales! So, it’s a good idea to be aware of how VAT applies to your goods.

Now, we can’t fit in everything there is to know about VAT into one blog. There’s just too much! But we’d like to talk through the main points that affect printers. Please note that this is a guide only and, for more details or for information on non-print items, you should see the government’s official legislation.

Zero-Rated Print Products: You’ll be pleased to hear that many print items are actually zero-rated! Being zero-rated is not quite the same as being VAT exempt. You still have to register the sale and log the amount of VAT. However, when the VAT has been set at 0%, there’s nothing for you to actually pay. The items officially listed as zero-rated VAT print products are as follows;

1. Books, booklets, brochures, pamphlets and leaflets.

2. Newspapers, journals and periodicals.

3. Children’s picture books and painting books.

4. Music (printed, duplicated or manuscript).

5. Maps, charts and topographical plans.

6. Covers, cases and other articles supplied with items 1 to 5 and not separately accounted for.

Some of these are pretty straightforward. For the main items though, we’ve included a more detailed description for you here…

Books & Booklets: Books are defined as anything of substantial reading matter bound between covers of a thicker material. These can be printed, typed, photocopied, or even handwritten and will still count as zero-rated. This category also includes bound collections of letters; loose-leaf books (which may be presented in a temporary binder); and amendments to loose-leaf books.

Exceptions include books of technical plans; collection albums (e.g. stamps) that are not made up of at least 75% reading material; and stationery items like diaries and address books.

Brochures & Pamphlets: These are identified as multiple sheets of paper fastened or folded together but not necessarily bound. They can contain advertising material or can be purely informative in nature. Single sheet folded brochures can also be zero-rated, as long as they contain a substantial amount of informative text and are not designed to hold other items.

Leaflets: Leaflets can be a little tricky to make sure they count as a zero-rated item. In order to class as a leaflet, your print must be a single sheet of paper that meets the following criteria…

1. No bigger than A4 finished (can go up to A2 flat but must be folded to be smaller than A4).

2. Designed for short-term use – printed on low-weight stock and without laminations or other finishes that suggest it could be kept for longer.

3. Intended for mass distribution with a minimum of 50 copies supplied.

4. Designed to be held by hand rather than mounted for general display.

5. Designed for no other purpose than to inform.

6. Supplied on their own, not as part of a larger print bundle.

Pay particular attention to point number 5 as this is where it’s easy to get tripped up. Your leaflet will become vatable if people can use it to get something. For example, if your leaflet promises “free entry with this leaflet”, or “25% off with this leaflet”.

Leaflets with Forms: Some leaflets or brochures include small forms – “areas for completion” – or sections to detach and return to the company or charity. These kinds of leaflets may still be zero-rated as long as the area for completion/detachment is no more than 25% of the total product.

Vatable Print Items: Supplying other printed products is likely to require VAT. If you can’t find a way for your work to fit into one of the above categories, it will be standard rated – 20%.

We just want to draw attention to two areas that, from experience, we’ve found are likely to catch people out;

Posters: Posters can sometimes be seen as similar to leaflets. However, as a general rule, anything A3 or bigger will be classed as a poster and you will need to pay VAT. If fewer than 50 are supplied, A4s will also count as posters because the order size doesn’t imply mass distribution.

Certificates: On a similar front, certificates could be deemed as a kind of leaflet; they’re single sheets of paper, usually small that A4, don’t require more than 25% of the design to be filled in etc… However, certificates are designed to be kept and so these, too, are disqualified from zero-rating.

Turning Standard Rating into Zero-Rating: If a product you regularly produce wasn’t listed in the zero-rated section, fear not! There may be hope yet as there are some cases when typically standard rated products can become zero-rated. Here are just a couple…

Letters: On their own, letters do not qualify for zero-rating unless they’re in permanently bound collections. But they might also be zero rated if the letter is more of an incomplete template. An example would be a stock welcome letter perhaps, for which the details are completed on an individual need basis. In this form, a letter might qualify as a leaflet as long as the incomplete section requires no more than the recipient’s name and address, a reference number, and a signature.

Charity Supplies: Sometimes print items that are not normally zero-rated may suddenly become zero-rated when supplied to a charity. This is covered by a whole new section of VAT legislation so, for more information, please see the official government guidance.  

That about sums it up for printed items with VAT. There are a few more considerations you might be interested in that we didn’t get to cover today. If we didn’t answer your questions here, please drop us a line

Ice Hockey Shutdown

It seems like a lifetime since the last live ice hockey game I went to in the UK. It was the EIHL Challenge Cup Final in Cardiff and I had no idea that there would be no more hockey after that.

I had just designed the Challenge Cup Final programme and was feeling proud of what I had achieved. Being around the rink and seeing the fans holding ‘my programme’ was an absolute joy. The Cardiff and Sheffield fans all together cheering for their respective sides is what sport is all about. And, in my opinion, ice hockey fans do it like no other!

Looking back, the game was lucky to be played at all as we were on the cusp of the first Covid-19 wave. The ensuing lockdown meant the league was cancelled and the upcoming Play-off weekend was cancelled too. I was lucky enough to have been asked to design that Play-off weekend programme too, so to have that weekend cancelled was a major disappointment, both personally and professionally.

I hope that next season, whenever that may be, I am lucky enough to be a part of the matchday programmes again and the major finals that the league hold. Designing the weekly programmes is an honour I’ll never get tired of, and to design the two major finals for the league was a dream come true.

Sport without fans in attendance is hard to swallow. Yes, it’s great for sport to be played behind closed doors and via webcasts but nothing compares to being in the stands. Living every shot, save, body-check and fight as they happen is hard to explain. The uncontrollable feeling to jump out of your seat or put your head in your hands is amazing.

Let’s hope (and pray if you want) that we can get back to the way we were on that Sunday in March, and we can relive those feelings of joy for winning, and despair for losing. I am missing both of those emotions right now. I’d take either one at the minute just to be at a live game.

Roll on 2021-22 season??

Roll on Challenge Cup Final 2022

Outdoor Display Products →

With the Covd-19 pandemic meaning we, currently, all need to spend more time outdoors, we will need more promotional material to make these outdoor spaces more ‘homely’ and enjoyable. Printed hardware ranging from tents to flags are available, and can be tailored to your own needs.

For businesses to survive this period we all need to look at what we can do to make us stand out from the crowd. We at Freeman Design are proud to say we can make that happen and have lots of large format items available to order. Click on the title of this blog to be directed to our new micro-site for all outdoor display products. Or, check out the link below by pasting it into your browser to see our new micro-site with all the information and products you need.

https://yourproductsolution.co.uk/outdoor/?dm_i=4BXT%2CV41Y%2C52R8ZG%2C3T2CO%2C1

Get in touch if anything you see takes your fancy or interests you.

Stay Safe, Stay Positive, Stand out from the crowd!!

Sports Programme Cover designs

Someone asked me recently what inspires me with printed design. I didn’t need to think very long as sports matchday programmes have always been a passion of mine.

Super Bowl 2020 programme cover

In this digital age of social media it can be easy to forget how powerful a printed programme can be! Firstly, the revenue that can be generated through a programme is second to none. Adverts and sales can increase revenue weekly.

Secondly, the cover designs can be amazing. Anything goes with a cover design as long as you can include the required details. Bold, Bright colours and great photography.

Liverpool FC matchday programme cover

Having an actual printed copy in your hand as a keepsake, a memento of a moment in time is something every team should embrace and keep producing.

I just love a printed programme!

Good Design Sells!

The Importance of Design in Marketing

Not only does design help attract attention towards your marketing, it can also enhance the quality of your message. For more specific instances of how design influences your marketing, look no further than the examples below.

Establishes Brand Identity, Look, and Feel

When you think of the world’s most well known brands, you can instantly picture their logos, unique color schemes, and even fonts. This isn’t something these brands luckily stumbled upon; a lot goes into developing the ideal logo, finding the perfect color scheme, and making the right font choices. Psychological studies have been conducted to see how people perceive different colors, and marketers use that in their branding to help convey quality or a different message. Certain colors can create excitement or sadness, increase appetite, or even create a feeling of warmth or coolness. If you want to convey your product/service is high-end, for example, brands will often use colors like black, gold, or silver.

In addition to the color scheme, a lot of work goes into developing the perfect font for your design. Selecting the proper typefaces, size, and style is crucial for developing your brand identity, and everything about the font is closely considered from a designer standpoint, like weight, kerning, leading, point size, feeling/style, etc. The fonts you use are a reflection of your company, much like the clothes you wear to an important sales meeting. Some fonts are more comparable to suits, while others are more comparable to pyjamas.

Raises the Visibility of Your Campaigns

With so many companies competing for attention online these days, having exceptional design is one of the best ways to differentiate yourself from the crowd. Likewise, if your design just stinks altogether, you really have no chance of being noticed. As humans, it’s in our nature to habituate our environments and become familiar with things that don’t stand out. If people noticed every detail of every little thing, there’d be information overload. For designers, it’s important to visualize your marketing the way your target persona sees it, so you can better determine what would help it stand out, and stay away from designs that make it unappealing to them.

Getting your target persona’s attention is just one part of the equation, however. Once you have your persona’s attention, you now need to keep their attention, and good design helps you do that. Have you ever seen a targeted ad on Facebook, for example? Have you clicked on it? If the art direction looks good and the topic is relevant to me, not only will it catch my attention, but I’m also much more likely to click. When the photo, design, or topic is irrelevant to me or features an uninteresting picture, however, then I’m much more likely to keep scrolling.

Good design sells!

The Playoff Weekend Experience

Well the last few weeks has been amazing. I suppose it all started a month or so back when I was asked if I would be interested in designing the EIHL Playoff Finals programme. To be honest, the decision to say YES took at least 2 seconds! To be thought of as an option was way more than I could have ever dreamed of, so to be the ‘go to guy’ was an absolute honour!

Being introduced to the EIHL Media Manager was great, as I wanted to make an impression with the league from the get go. The design process was straight forward as I had an idea in my head for what I wanted the programme to look like. Luckily the league agreed and we were able to create a great looking programme.

I was kindly given a media pass for the weekend so I was able to experience the backstage excitement as well as the fans experience.

Outside the Motorpoint Arena in Nottingham

The weekend was amazing with all 11 sets of fans interacting and getting on harmoniously. That is a great feeling when you consider the rivalry on the ice. I suppose that’s what makes ice hockey so appealing to families?

My team, the Cardiff Devils, were eventually victorious and lifted the Playoff trophy for a second season running. The feeling of euphoria is something I will remember forever and hopefully I will be asked to do the same next season too!

I’m interested to see how things progress over the summer and hopefully I can play a bigger part in my team’s new season campaign. Let’s Go Devils!

The Playoff Champions

Back stage view of the trophy presentation

Belfast bound....

Off on a little trip to Belfast today with the Cardiff Devils Red Army. Just a quick one now but more to follow, so keep checking back ……

It starts here.....

Well, today is a big day for me. At the ripe old age of 40, I’ve finally bitten the bullet and set up my own website. 20 years in the design and print industry has taught me a lot and I want to pass on the good ideas to you, without the middle man! Let’s see where it takes us……

“It’s never too late to change lanes....”

— The Stereophonics