We Checked 501 Customer Artwork Problems. These Are the Print Mistakes That Keep Coming Up

If you’ve ever placed a print order and immediately found yourself thinking “what next?”, we promise you’re not alone.

Print artwork can be tricky to get right, whether it’s a simple business card design or artwork for a complex foiled, die-cut, folded invitation with all the bells, whistles, and shiny bits attached.

Your design might look perfect on-screen; in fact, I’m sure it does! It came together nicely in Canva, Illustrator, Photoshop, or InDesign, and as far as you’re concerned, it’s ready to go. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always translate to perfect print production, though.

Once it lands in our pre-press inbox, our design team gets to work proofing your order. That’s where we do our best to let you know if and where your artwork falls short for print: be it missing bleed, artwork set up at a different size to the order, a background that stops at the trim edge instead of running into the bleed, text or a QR code sitting too close to where Daz, our guillotine master, drops his blade, incorrect foil layers, missing die-cut paths, unclear front and back files, or whether the thing you ordered actually matches the artwork you sent us.

Our goal is to make sure you don’t get any nasty surprises when your print arrives at your door. And if that means a few back-and-forth emails with our Nicola, Stefania, or Isobelle, it’ll be worth it.

Don’t get me wrong, we’re not out here actively looking for problems. We’d much rather spot a missing bleed area, a confusing foil layer, or a slightly too close-to-the-edge QR code before your order is printed, trimmed, foiled, folded, drilled, cut, and shipped to you.

Most of the time, these are not dramatic, rip-it-up-and-toss-it-in-the-trash level problems. They’re minor setup issues that can result in a tad more one-on-one time with our lovely pre-press team, who will always do their very best to talk you through them in layman’s terms. The one thing we really want you to know is that we do not expect you to be pre-press pros – that’s our job.

Some of the most amazing designs by the most talented artists still need a bit of print setup advice. That doesn’t make them bad designs or sub-par illustrators; it just means their work needs translating from “looks great on-screen” to “will print exactly as expected”, which is where our pre-press avengers assemble.

So, because we see these things every day, we decided to take a magnifying glass and have a proper look at what keeps tripping customers up, and yes, we’re sharing the numbers. Not the polished, vague, “we noticed a few common niggles” version, but the real numbers. The kind most businesses would probably keep tucked away in an encoded spreadsheet, far from public view and nosy competitors. So why are we choosing to share them? Well, because we think they’re too useful not to share!

After all, if 1 in 10 orders need some form of artwork intervention, that tells us something worth talking about. Not just about print files and all that seemingly boring stuff, but about how confusing artwork setup can be when you’re a first-timer trying to order something that needs any level of print finishing.

So, let’s get into it.

At A Glance: What We Found

We reviewed 501 real Aura Print orders where our pre-press team recorded an artwork issue between November 20, 2025 and June 26, 2026. Across the same period, we processed 4,983 orders in total, meaning around 1 in 10 orders needed some form of artwork intervention before production could continue.

The most common issues were incorrect foil setup, artwork supplied at the wrong size, missing or incorrect bleed, unclear files or instructions, and die-cut artwork missing a clear cut path. Most problems were fixable, but many still caused delays, extra clarification, corrected files, design time, or changes to the original order.

How We Reviewed 501 Customer Artwork Issues

For this study, we looked at the last 501 orders where our pre-press team recorded an artwork issue before the job could be thrust into the ever-capable hands of Lukasz, our production manager.

These were real Aura Print orders placed between 20th November 2025 and 26th June 2026, covering everything from business cards and custom invitations to stickers, bookmarks, banners, tags, and more.

Across that same period, we processed 4,983 orders in total. So, when we say around 1 in 10 orders needed some kind of artwork intervention, that’s not a throwaway line plucked from thin air. All the statistics we lay out are based on the artwork issues our team logged across just over seven months of real customer orders.

Each record showed us the product our customer ordered, the finishes they selected, the problem our team spotted upon receipt of their artwork, the advice given to the customer, and what happened next.

From there, we grouped those issues into the themes that kept cropping up: foil setup, artwork supplied at the wrong size, missing or incorrect bleed, unclear instructions, cut path problems, missing files, front-and-back file confusion, and finish-specific setup issues.

In short, we were not looking for perfect artwork. We delved deep to find the occasions where our customers needed a helping hand before their order could progress to the production stage.

A quick note on the data: this study only includes orders where an artwork issue was recorded by our pre-press team. It does not include minor issues our team fixed quickly without logging them as artwork incorrect, and it should not be read as a product-by-product error rate. For example, if playing cards appear often in the data, that tells us they appeared often in this sample, not that playing cards are more likely to go wrong overall.

What We Found: The Biggest Artwork Issues

Before we start pointing fingers at bleed, foil layers, cut paths, and all the other usual suspects, let’s open it up and look at the bigger picture.

Across the 501 artwork issue records we reviewed, we saw a few of the usual suspects repeatedly popping their heads above the parapet, and very few of them were random. Most were print-specific setup problems that are easy to miss if you’re not preparing files for production every day, which is why our team does its best to clarify, inform, and correct before an order moves any further.

Foil setup was by far the biggest troublemaker, followed by artwork being supplied at the wrong size, missing or incorrect bleed, and finishing-specific setup problems like incorrect or missing die-cut paths. In other words, the more technical the order, the more important the artwork setup became.

Here’s a quick overview of what we found:

Looking at these statistics, it really struck us that most artwork issues don’t really have anything to do with whether the design itself is good or bad.

In fact, some of the best-looking files in the world can still give pre-press a run for their money if the practical bits haven’t been set up quite right. Foil needs to be clear and clearly separated. Bleed isn’t just nice to have; it’s a requirement for successful reproduction, especially where print runs right up to the edge. Cut paths need to show us exactly where to cut, not just an approximation. Sizes need to match what has been ordered. Annoying for customers? Possibly. Important for tip-top print? Absolutely.

It isn’t the end of the world, most of the time. Still, it’s worth checking before we print, foil, trim, fold, drill, pack, and wave your order off with our ever-cheerful courier, Simon.

The Most Common Artwork Mistakes We Found

Now for the bit our pre-press team knows all too well.

Once we’d finished painstakingly grouping the 501 artwork issue records, the same problems kept coming back around: foil artwork that wasn’t set up clearly, files supplied at the wrong size, missing bleed, cut paths that weren't quite right, confusing instructions, missing files, and artwork that needed adjusting before it could work with the finish that had been ordered (think rounded corner business cards with text running right up to the corners!).

Some of these issues didn’t take our team long to sort, while others took a bit more work from our customers (with our help, of course!). Either way, they’re worth knowing about before you send your next file to print.

So, starting with the biggest culprit in our data, let’s talk about metallic foil.

Problem 1: Foil Artwork Wasn’t Set Up Correctly

In the last 7 months, most of the jobs marked ‘artwork incorrect’ by our pre-press team were the result of foil, and we can’t say we’re massively surprised.

Of the 501 incorrect artwork orders we reviewed, 29.3% involved foil setup problems. Foil also appeared as a finish on 46.3% of our artwork issue records, which tells us something our pre-press inbox has been yelling at us for a while: shiny finishes may be cool, but setup isn’t always self-explanatory.

For us, it’s important that we ensure our customers understand that foil is not applied in the same way as the rest of their print design. Rather than soaking into the stock like ink or toner, metallic foil sits on top of the stock and laminate, and it only transfers to the areas defined in the customer’s separate foil artwork file. So, if you want a logo, border, or illustration to be foiled, our pre-press, print, and finishing teams need to know exactly where that foil is supposed to go, which is why a dedicated, separate foil layer is non-negotiable.

For foil printing, the foil artwork must be supplied separately and clearly from the main print artwork, as a solid 100% vector PDF or design file. In layman’s terms, we need one file showing the full-color design (if applicable), and another showing the areas you need foiled. This rules out any guesswork on our part – no “maybe this bit?”, no pre-press séance around Nicola's Mac trying to summon the customer’s intention, but accurate files from the get-go.

Our research shows that, when foil is involved, our customers occasionally hit stumbling blocks. Sometimes the foil layer is missing completely or built into the foiled art print artwork rather than supplied separately; other times artwork for foiled playing cards uses gradients, transparency, fuzzy edges, tiny type, or extremely fine lines that might look elegant on-screen, but are not going to give a guaranteed foil finish once everything has come together.

Where foil is concerned, we recommend solid shapes, bold typography, clean vector lines, and properly separated foil elements for the cleanest, most reliable results, especially on smaller print products like metallic business cards. Details that are a touch too fine can result in a dicey finish simply because there isn’t enough line weight for the foil to adhere to, and that’s the last thing you (or I!) want.

And then there are the mystery foil jobs. The ones where a customer has selected foil on the order, sent us a gorgeous design, but given us no indication as to which elements need to be foiled. We love a creative challenge, but we’re better at making print shine than we are at reading minds. Too sassy? I’m sorry, but I promise it benefits us both!

If the foil setup is not clear, we usually have to hit pause on the job while the designer handling the order reaches out for a corrected file, a clearer foil layer, or confirmation of what should be foiled before anything hits our production presses. This can delay the turnaround by days if the customer is in a different time zone, the request results in a lot of back-and-forth with our pre-press team, or there’s a delay in response.

This doesn’t mean foil is difficult to order; it just means your artwork is likely to need a little extra TLC before you send it across to us. Get it wrong? We won’t hold it against you. Our pre-press team will talk you through everything, making setting up your artwork for foil printing straightforward. Once you’ve done it once, you’ll be set for future orders – it’s just like riding a bike!

Ready to learn how to nail your foil setup? We've dedicated an entire guide to why foil, die cutting, and rounded corners need extra artwork setup, helping to ensure you get it right first try.

If you’re planning a foiled order, the short version is this: make the foil obvious, make it separate, make sure it lines up with the artwork underneath, and thoroughly check your foil printing proof. Your future shiny print will tip its cap to you.

Problem 2: Artwork Was Supplied at the Wrong Size

The second most common issue we found was artwork being supplied at the wrong size, or not quite matching the dimensions outlined in the order. This came up in 20.0% of incorrect artwork jobs we reviewed, so it earned its place toward the top of this list.

On paper, this sounds like a bit of a non-issue – something we can sort with the click of a mouse. Sometimes it is, other times it isn’t. If the artwork supplied is too small, scaling it up can affect the image quality, text size, and layout. If it’s supplied too large, cropping it might cut into borders, logos, or important details. If the proportions are different, it isn’t just a case of stretching it to fit the ordered size – this will result in a cropped, distorted, and likely off-balance result that makes your artwork look like it’s being reflected in a fun-house mirror.

At this point, the safest thing for us to do is bounce the artwork back to the customer, who can, with any luck, supply us with a new file. If that’s not possible, we generally recommend changing the size of the print to match the size of the artwork. If the file size is close but not close enough once bleed, trim, and safe zones have been considered, you’ll likely receive the same request from our team.

Incorrectly sized artwork is most troublesome when the design has borders or symmetrical artwork that lies close to the edges of the print. A few decimal inches might not sound like a lot, but once the file is being trimmed, folded, or finished, those few decimal inches can throw the entire print into a state of uneven disarray.

Nicola, our pre-press manager, noted, “I see this a lot of print where the customer has a really specific format in mind. Things like invitations, playing cards, art prints, and basically anything custom-sized. It’s important that these look bang-on, so if you’re ordering a custom size, the artwork needs to 100% match the ordered size. Because of this, if there’s even the slightest discrepancy between the ordered size and the size of the file provided, we will always go back to the customer with next steps – we want their print to turn out exactly as they hoped!”.

Continuing this, Nicola gave us her biggest pro tip. “The safest thing to do is check the size of your artwork against the size in your basket before placing your order and sending us your artwork. If you’ve ordered 4x6", the artwork should be set up as 4x6 plus 0.08" bleed. If you’ve ordered something like a square business card, the artwork must be square. If it’s a custom-size die-cut business card, the artwork needs to match the size you inputted when placing your order down to the decimal inch”.

4x6", 5x7”, square, 4x8", and custom sizes are not interchangeable, even if they look close enough on-screen. Print is a bit of a diva, you see.

If you place your order and the artwork size does not match the ordered size, our pre-press team will usually have to pause the job and check what you want us to do next. Sometimes it is as easy as a quick resize; other times we’ll need new artwork. Regardless, a member of our team will always do their best to explain what’s causing the issue and how to fix it, whether that’s scaling, cropping, or something else.

The TL; DR version? Before sending over your files, check the size of your artwork against the size in your basket. If they don’t match, you may experience unwanted delays, so it’s worth the extra couple of minutes!

Problem 3: Missing or Incorrect Bleed

Bleed came in as the third most common issue in our incorrect artwork data, with 12.6% of incorrect artwork jobs involving missing or incorrect bleed.

This might not sound like a big deal, certainly not as dramatic as rogue foil layers or horrendously cropped artwork, but bleed is one of those small print setup details that all printers worth their weight in gold will require.

Put simply, bleed is the extra bit of artwork that extends out past the final trim line. It gives our production guys a little extra room when your order is cut down to its finished size. Without bleed, you risk unwanted white edges appearing around the finished print, especially if your design has a colored background, pattern, photo, or anything else that runs right to the edge of the print.

And because we promised full honesty up top, it's worth saying this: more orders arrive without bleed than this percentage suggests.

After a candid chat with our pre-press team, we learned that if it's a quick 60-second fix, our designers will often just sort it. No drama, no "artwork incorrect" flag on our system, and no back-and-forth emails asking the customer to resupply a file for something we can tidy up in less time than the email would take us to type out. That means the 12.6% figure only represents bleed issues that were significant enough to halt the job, need clarification, or require the customer to send corrected artwork.

So, while missing bleed did make up 12.6% of the artwork issues we looked at, bleed itself is something our pre-press team deals with far more often than our research gives away. Classic bleed, making more work for everyone and still somehow flying under the radar.

The main thing to remember is this: bleed and borders are not the same thing.

Bleed should extend out beyond the trim edge. Borders sit inside the design. If your background color stops exactly where your custom flyer, art print, or business card is supposed to be cut, there's no wiggle room. If your design has a neat border sitting close to the edge of your personalized certificates, that can actually make things trickier. The reason? Well, the tiniest bit of movement during printing or trimming can make the borders look uneven, throwing off the symmetry of your print.

For the majority of print files, backgrounds, images, patterns, and colors that reach the edge need to run into the bleed area. Important text, logos, QR codes, and other key design elements should stay safely inside the safe zone, away from the edge where Daz and the guillotine get involved.

If your design has a colored background or photo that reaches the edge, bleed is what gives our guillotine operator room to do their job accurately. Without it, our team may need to adjust the file, ask you to resupply it, or explain why the finished print could end up with a white sliver where no white sliver was invited. And if you want to learn more about the importance of bleed and how to set it up correctly before placing your order, our guide to bleed is the place to be.

TL; DR: If your design runs to the edge of your print, your artwork needs to go beyond the edge.

Problem 4: Die-Cut Artwork Missing a Clear Cut Path

Next up, cut paths. Glamorous? Not especially. Important? Vitally.

Of the incorrect die-cut artwork jobs we savvy marketers reviewed, 74.1% involved a cut path, cut line, or die-cut setup issue. So, when die-cut artwork went wrong, the reason was generally clear-cut (pardon the pun).

Die-cut products need a clear guide showing exactly where your packaging, die-cut bookmarks, or custom stickers should be cut. That might be the outline of a house-shaped business card for a real estate agent, a bookstack cut-out bookmark for a booktok biz, or a luggage-style tag for a hotel chain. Essentially, anything that has bravely decided to go where no rectangular print dares.

The same goes for kiss-cut stickers on sheets. With our kiss-cut stickers, the blade cuts through the top sticker layer, but leaves the backing sheet intact, so the stickers stay together on the sheet until they're peeled away. Die-cut stickers, on the other hand, are cut all the way through to create individual stickers. Different result, same need for setup clarity: we still need to know what cut path John, our die-cut master, needs to program our blade to follow.

And here's what our pre-press team sees the most: sometimes the cut path is missing completely, sometimes the shape looks obvious in the design but there's no actual cut line for our team or machines to follow, sometimes the cut line is there but it's too close to important artwork, sometimes the cut line is simply too intricate, and occasionally the cut line is supplied on the artwork rather than as a separate file.

A good cut path should clearly follow the intended shape of the finished product. It should be easy to identify, supplied separately from the main print artwork, and not leave our pre-press team squinting at the screen trying to work out where we're meant to cut.

For our setup specifically, that means supplying your die-cut line as an entirely separate file in magenta, rather than placing it directly onto the print artwork itself. If the magenta line is sitting on your actual print file, it will print as part of the design, which we suspect isn't the look you’re going for. When our artworkers overlay your artwork with the cut file, the two need to line up accurately. If they don't, the cut will be off, and your beautifully designed shape may not land where it should.

It's also important to ensure you're keeping important design elements away from the cut line. Things like text, QR codes, logos, and borders should not be hugging the cut line because, even with the most careful setup in the world, cutting is still a real-world finishing process, and tiny movements can happen.

None of this is to put anyone off getting creative with print shapes. Quite the opposite. Die cutting and kiss cutting can turn a perfectly nice print project into something far more interesting, but it's important to remember that the more custom the shape, the more attention you need to pay to your artwork setup.

So, if your artwork needs to be cut to a custom shape, we implore you not to rely on the design itself to explain to our team where the cut line belongs. Label the cut path clearly on a separate file, keep important details away from said cut path, and have our team jumping for joy when you get it right the first time!

For more on the difference between sticker cutting styles, take a look at our guide to kiss-cut vs die-cut stickers.

Problem 5: Unclear Files and Instructions

Not every order our team marks as 'artwork incorrect' comes down to something technical like foil layers, bleed, or cut paths. Sometimes, the issue is much simpler: we just needed a little clarification.

In 9.8% of incorrect artwork jobs, the problem involved unclear artwork, files, order details, or instructions. A further 5.2% involved file type, file access, or formatting problems, while 5.0% involved quantity, design count, or front/back mismatches.

In other words, quite a few jobs were not necessarily "wrong" at first glance. After a closer look, though, the assigned designer occasionally found they were missing the information we needed to move them forward with the confidence we like to carry into print.

According to Stefania, a key member of our artwork team, "we see this the most on orders made up of multiple artwork files, designs, or sides. Jobs like playing cards with different fronts and backs, business card orders made up of multiple designs for multiple employees, invitations with different versions, or basically anything where we have loads of files to contend with. It's always a relief when the files are clearly named!".

The reality is that print production needs clarity. If you send us multiple designs but your files don’t indicate how many copies of each you require, we’ll naturally have to hit pause on the job while we clarify quantities with you. Same thing with front and back files on double-sided print – if they’re not labelled with something along the lines of ‘front’ and ‘back’, our pre-press and production teams won’t know what’s supposed to go where, which is particularly important with folded products like custom folded tags, greeting cards, and booklets. If foil has been added to your order but no foil file has been supplied, we’ll need to ask you to supply one or clarify whether you intended to choose foil as a finishing option in the first place. If a WeTransfer link has expired, a file will not open, or only one side of a double-sided print has been sent across, you’re also likely to hear from our pre-press or customer service team.

That might all sound pretty obvious, but when you’re juggling designs, deadlines, product options, files, and file exports, it is very easy for one small detail to fall by the wayside.

Stefania gave us her top tip for ensuring your files are nice and clear. “The best thing to do before sending us your design is to make sure all the files are named clearly. It might look really obvious, but if customers clearly label their files to distinguish front and back, foil layers, cut line files, and how the quantities should be split when ordering multiple designs, it takes away any element of guesswork and any need for us to reach out and bother you”. She went on to say, “if customers have any special instructions or want to make things super clear, they can pop as much information as they like in the email they use to send us their files – we always read customer emails thoroughly!”.

Ready for another TL; DR? If there is more than one file, side, finish, or design involved, assume our team will need clear file names and corresponding instructions. Your order will move much more smoothly, and our pre-press team can save their detective work for something else!

What This Tells Us About Print Artwork

Looking through thousands of orders to uncover 501 artwork issues told us something we already suspected based on the daily chatter overheard in the pre-press corner of the office: most artwork problems are fixable, but they do need catching at the right point, which is ideally before anything has hit our production manager’s desk. Thanks to our eagle-eyed, uber-experienced pre-press team, very few potential problems get through without customers being made aware well in advance!

In 34.9% of the incorrect artwork cases we reviewed, the customer was asked to resupply their files with the advised changes made, while in 19.0% of cases, our team needed to clarify something before the job could be moved into production. In 10.0% of cases, we sent a screenshot or visual reference to help explain the problem we were seeing, because sometimes a quick marked-up image is all the customer needs to get their file size fitting.

It’s also worth saying that these issues showed up across a real mix of products, with playing cards, business cards, and invitations making up 48.8% of the incorrect artwork jobs we reviewed. We do know these are three of our most popular products, though, so this only really tells us where issues appeared most often in this sample rather than which products have the highest overall error rate based on total order percentages. Still, it makes total sense when you look at the kind of setup those products tend to involve: multiple designs, front and back artwork, foil layers, custom sizing, rounded corners, die-cut shapes, and all the other tiny details that need to line up before production can do their thing.

The same goes for finishes. Foil was chosen as a finish on 46.3% of the artwork issues we uncovered, rounded corners appeared on 28.3%, and die-cutting was selected on 5.4%, which does not mean those finishes are a problem in themselves, but it does show us how quickly artwork setup becomes more important when the job involves custom finishes (or anything beyond a straightforward print & trim). In our experience, straightforward flyer orders tend to involve fewer setup questions because they’re often simple, flat print jobs with no laminates or custom finishes, making them more of a send-us-your-file-and-we’ll-print-it situation. The moment you add shine, shape, folds, perforations, or multiple versions, the file naturally has a little more complexity.

That, really, is why artwork checks matter. We’re not being awkward or putting them in place to simply say “nope, try again”, we put them in place to help move orders from almost-there to actually-print-ready, whether that means our team talking you through bleed, asking for foil clarification, checking whether the four designs you sent need to be evenly split across the 100 invitations you ordered, or pointing out that a cut line needs to be supplied separately from the main artwork file, lest you have an unwanted magenta line around your print edge (eww!).

See it as a pause, a question, a screenshot, a corrected file, or a bit of paid design time, but those little pauses can still add up, because in 7.2% of incorrect artwork cases, the original order could not go ahead as planned and ended in minor order changes, partial refunds, or full refunds, which is not what we like to see. This is why our pre-press team would rather be mildly annoying or seemingly nit-picky before production than apologetic afterwards.

So, if there’s one major takeaway from all the time we spent lurking in our designers’ inboxes, it’s that print-ready artwork is all about making sure the file you supply gives our production team everything they need to make the finished product properly, whether that’s an entire wedding stationery suite, a stack of marketing booklets, or a short-run of art prints for an Etsy store top-up. If your artwork looks awesome on screen, take a second to question whether you think it will look just as good once printed. Does it have bleed? Is any of the text leaning up against the edge? Have you separated your foil layer? Will you be supplying a cut path for your die-cut bookmark? These are all things worth considering before sending us your artwork. And if your order requires a bit of back-and-forth with pre-press before things get moving, that’s usually a very good thing because it means we’ve caught an issue that could’ve caused problems down the line.

Before You Upload: A Quick Print Artwork Checklist

If you’re getting ready to place your print order, here are a few checks worth making before you send us your artwork:

1. Is your artwork set up at the same size as the product you’ve ordered?

2. Have you added bleed if your design runs to the edge?

3. Are important details, like text, logos, and QR codes, safely away from the cut line?

4. If you’ve ordered foil, have you supplied a clear, separate foil layer?

5. If you’ve ordered a die-cut or kiss-cut product, have you supplied a separate magenta cut line?

6. Do your print files and cut/foil files line up properly when placed on top of each other?

7. Are your front and back files clearly labelled?

8. If you’re supplying multiple designs, have you told us how many of each you need?

9. Are all files included, accessible, and supplied in a format we can actually open?

10. If you think our team needs specific instructions, have you included them in your artwork email?

You don’t need to become a fully-fledged pre-press wizard before ordering print, but a few checks before upload can save a lot of back-and-forth later.

If you’re wondering what happens after our pre-press team spots one of these issues, we’ve also explained what happens when artwork isn’t print-ready, from clarification emails and annotated screenshots to corrected files, design time, and order changes.

And if you’re still not sure? That’s exactly why our team is here. Give us a call, drop us an email, type a message in the handy little chat function on our website – there’s a real pre-press human sat at the other side of it.

Need Help Getting Your Artwork Print Ready?

If your artwork isn’t quite ready for print, or you’re not sure whether you’ve set everything up correctly, don’t panic. Our pre-press team checks customer files for print while setting up your proof, and if something doesn’t look right, we’ll let you know before your order goes ahead.

Sometimes it’s a really quick and simple fix, and sometimes we might need a little more from you. Either way, the goal is the same: to help your finished print look how you expected it to look when you placed the order.

And if you’d rather not tackle the artwork setup side at all, you don’t have to. When placing your order, you can choose ‘Supply Brief & We Design’ instead of ‘Supply Finished Artwork’, which means our design team will do the legwork for you from the start.

If you do choose to supply finished artwork and it turns out not to be quite as print-ready as you hoped, we can usually help you set it up properly for a small design fee. That way, you’re not left trying to work out the ins and outs of bleed, foil layers, cut paths, or file setup on your own, and your artwork gets the best possible chance of sailing through proofing and into production without any unwelcome surprises.

So, after magnifying 501 artwork issues, the main thing we hope customers take away is this: print setup catches a lot of people out, and that’s exactly why our team checks before we print. Whether the file flies through proofing the first time or needs a helping hand from pre-press, we’re here to make sure the finished print does justice to what you had in mind.

Ready to jump on to the next case study in this series? From playing cards to bookmarks, we've dissected the print products that need the most artwork setup, walking you through our top tips and tricks for setting up each product!