Industry Lingo

Debossing: Depressing an image into a material's surface so that the image sits below the product surface.

Embossing: Impressing an image in relief to achieve a raised surface.

Hot Stamp: Setting a design on a relief die, which is then heated and pressed onto the printing surface.

Laser or Foil Stamp: Applying metallic or colored foil imprints to vinyl, leather or paper surfaces.

Personalization: Imprinting an item with a person's name using one of several methods such as mechanical engraving, laser engraving, hot stamping, debossing, sublimation, or screen printing, to name a few.

Die-casting: Injecting molten metal into the cavity of a carved die (a mold).

Die-striking: Producing emblems and other flat promotional products by striking a blank metal sheet with a hammer that holds the die.

Etching: Using a process in which an image is first covered with a protective coating that resists acid, then exposed, leaving bare metal and protected metal. The acid attacks only the exposed metal, leaving the image etched onto the surface.

Engraving: Cutting an image into metal, wood or glass by one of three methods--computerized engraving, hand tracing, or hand engraving.

Pantone Matching System (PMS): A book of standardized color in a fan format used to identify, match and communicate colors in order to produce accurate color matches in printing. Each color has a coded number indicating instructions for mixing inks to achieve that color.

Colorfill: Screen printing an image and then debossing it onto the vinyl's surface.

Embroidery: Stitching a design into fabric through the use of high-speed, computer-controlled sewing machines. Artwork must first be "digitized," which is the specialized process of converting two-dimensional artwork into stitches or thread. A particular format of art such as a jpeg, tif, eps, or bmp, cannot be converted into an embroidery tape. The digitizer must actually recreate the artwork using stitches. Then it programs the sewing machine to sew a specific design, in a specific color, with a specific type of stitch. This is the process known as digitizing.

Screen Printing an image is transferred to the printed surface by ink, which is pressed through a stenciled screen and treated with a light-sensitive emulsion. Film positives are put in contact with the screens and exposed to light, hardening the emulsion not covered by film and leaving a soft area on the screen for the squeegee to press ink through. (Also called silk screening).

Pad Printing: A recessed surface is covered with ink. The plate is wiped clean, leaving ink in the recessed areas. A silicone pad is then pressed against the plate, pulling the ink out of the recesses, and pressing it directly onto the product.

4-color Process: A system where a color image is separated into 4 different color values by the use of filters and screens (usually done digitally). The result is a color separation of 4 images, that when transferred to printing plates and printed on a printing press with the colored inks cyan (blue), magenta (red), yellow and black, reproduces the original color image. These four colors can be combined to create thousands of colors.

Camera-ready: Artwork that is black and white and has very clean, crisp lines that make it easy to scan and suitable for photographic reproduction.

Bleeds: printers cannot print right to the edge of a paper sheet. To create that effect, the printer must use a sheet, which is larger than the document size. Then the printer prints beyond the edge of the document size (usually 1/8"), then cuts the paper down to the document size.

Imprint Area: The area on a product, with specific dimensions, in which the imprint is placed.

Mechanical artwork: the traditional standard for acceptable mechanical artwork that is "camera-ready black and white" material.

Production Ready Art: Almost all registered logos are created in vector files using professional graphics software. This is an art format the majority of today’s manufacturers use to reproduce logos on various merchandise. Proper art files define colors using the industry standard Pantone Matching System®. With advances in printing technologies, a handful of product can now be printed employing digital methods directly from high-resolution (300dpi) images such as JPEG format. Unfortunately almost all logos found in web graphics are too low in resolution (72dpi) to serve as production ready art.

Logo Re-Creation: The process of creating a production ready art file, using professional software, from a low resolution source such as a JPEG or GIF found on a website like Google image search. The web is built graphically with the lowest resolution images to achieve the fastest upload times possible. These low-resolution web images are not considered production ready, mainly for their severe loss of information and detail and are not created with the intention of reproduction. Putting them back into a proper production-ready format generally incurs an art charge.

Resolution: Image resolution describes the detail an image holds. The term applies equally to digital images (today’s most common image format is a JPEG or JPG), film images, and other types of images. Higher resolution means more image detail. Vector graphics use geometry such as points, lines and curves to define art and retain detail when sized up or down, making them the most preferred art format for logos.

Pantone Matching System®: Often referred to as “PMS”; this collection of color formulas has been widely adopted by graphic designers, manufacturers and printing houses for a number of years now. The concept behind the Pantone system is to allow designers to 'color match' specific colors when a design enters the production stage—regardless of the equipment used to reproduce the color. This system is a great tool to maintain color consistency; which is the cornerstone for brand recognition.

Embroidery Threads: Like the Pantone system, there is a palette of thread colors to choose from. Unlike Pantone, the embroidery world has not embraced one widely adopted brand of thread. Three of our most common thread brands are Isacord, Robison-Anton and Madeira. The color range is much more limited than the Pantone system making sew out samples necessary when color matching is an important issue.

Mock-Up: A mock-up is a visual of a logo or artwork placed upon a product image or sketch. A mock-up is a great communication tool in the product development process, when the size, impression or artworks have to be quickly visually tested and approved.

Paper Proof: A proof is an image from the factory of your logo or graphic, often placed on a mechanical drawing of the product. This is the nuts and bolts of the process where last minute details may be manipulated to better function with specific reproduction processes and product. If changes are needed, a new mock-up visual is often the next step.

Sew Out Sample (Embroidery Swatch): Embroidery embellishment is unlike any other reproduction method in the merchandising world and often requires special attention to ensure a satisfactory outcome. A sew out sample is an embroidery test made on a small square of fabric. This fabric is often an random scrap of material and is mainly used as a visual of the actual embroidery art. In some instances the sample material may match the end garment in either color or type. To speed up the approval process, a digital scan or photograph may be emailed for customer approval.

Pre-Production Sample: Usually used in large or expensive garment orders either for silk screening or embroidery, an actual garment is finished in its relevant process to demonstrate precisely the end result. It is the most accurate process for approval if time allows.

Vector files: Sometimes called a geometric file, most images created with tools such as Adobe Illustrator and CorelDraw are in the form of vector image files. Vector image files are easier to modify than raster image files (which can, however, sometimes be reconverted to vector files for further refinement).

Bitmap files: Images are exactly what their name says they are: a collection of bits that form an image. The image consists of a matrix of individual dots (or pixels) that all have their own color (described using bits, the smallest possible units of information for a computer). Page Layout Documents: the font files and document preferences that need to be supplied for use on the supplier's operating system.

Metafile: A collection of structures that store a picture in a device-independent format. Device independence is the one feature that sets metafiles apart from bitmaps. Unlike a bitmap, a metafile guarantees device independence. There is a drawback to metafiles, because they are generally drawn more slowly than bitmaps. Therefore, if an application requires fast drawing and device independence is not an issue, it should use bitmaps instead of metafiles.

Adobe® Portable Document Format (PDF) files: Preserve the visually rich content of original files, and are easier to read than HTML content that appears in a Web browser. Adobe PDF files print cleanly and quickly, and anyone can share Adobe PDF files, regardless of their platform or software application.

TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) file: File format for exchanging bitmapped images (usually scans) between applications.

EPS (encapsulated postscript) file: An alternative picture file format that allows PostScript data to be stored and edited and is easy to transfer between Macintosh, MSDOS and other systems.

PostScript: A computer description language that allows a programmer to create complex pages using a series of commands.