Following on from our artwork upload post, I thought it might be prudent to write something on naming conventions for banner artwork.
Before you read, this is by no means a must do, but more some helpful advice which, can help prevent mistakes and to match up orders and artwork more quickly. Also, you might find it more useful to you than just calling a file ‘banner.pdf’.
We do receive an awful lot of orders through our Venture Banners website, and once an order has been completed, the website directs you to an artwork upload page which then ties up your artwork with your order. This is great for those that use the online order process, but what about those who want to send the order a few hours (or even days) later? Sure the upload facility works just as well, but how then do we match up the order? Well this blog post is here to help all of you who are feeling torn over how to name your banner to help out us Venture folk.
Firstly, the most obvious one, would be to name the file the same as the Order No. we have provided via the ‘Order Acknowledgement’. This Order No. will follow your order through the entire process, so giving your artwork the same name would seem the logical step. Therefore, in this example case:
2010-11-29-3LJSJJ.pdf
…would be correct.
What if there were multiple banners on the same order? Well, how about:
2010-11-29-3LJSJJ-1.pdf
2010-11-29-3LJSJJ-2.pdf
2010-11-29-3LJSJJ-3.pdf
…and so on?
This name may be great for us but might not necessarily be good for you, so how about this? A common way for naming files, and one that we employ here, is to name the files in the following manner:
[width][dimensions] x [height][dimensions] – [client] – [date].pdf
This would equate to the following:
3m x 1m – Frankie & Bennys Lakeside – Feb 09.pdf
..which should help to find again easily, and should be easy for us to match up which artwork goes with which banner in the order.
If you would like to go even further you can place the percentage that the artwork has been reduced by and adding the quantity of prints e.g.:
3 off 3m x 1m – Frankie & Bennys Lakeside – Feb 09 @ 25%.pdf
…which will also help us when it comes to artwork checking.
At the end of the day, naming your file is not vital – we don’t want you to lose sleep (or even hair) over it. As long as you get your ‘Order Confirmation’ (not ‘Acknowledgement’) we will have had your atwork and put your banner through to print.
If you would like to know more about creating the artwork for banners, read Ian’s excellent article ‘Studio Time: Bleedin’ Crop!’ which is the first of many to come.