Gym Banner: How to set up a print file

[neonmamacita]

I am looking to set up a print file to for a couple of design options for a gym ribbon like this. How do I go about doing it, especially for the ribbon, ie. how do i designate a bleed on a shape that isn't a rectangle. Thanks. 

[Bobby Henderson]

The printed banner material will have to be cut to that shape (preferably after the banner is printed). The banner material is stored on rolls that are compatible with large format printers. The material won't be available pre-cut to specific shapes.

The key thing is indicating where the cut/fold line is supposed to be. Most banners usually have 1 inch of bleed. Within Adobe Illustrator you can use commands like Offset Path to generate that outer bleed line.

Depending on the size of the banner you'll need to design either at full size or at some level of scale, such as 50% or 10% of actual size. Most banners can be designed at full size within Adobe Illustrator. Huge items like billboard faces are commonly designed at 1" = 1' scale. The large format RIP application will scale the art file back up to full size. But you have to state the final size of the banners and artwork scale to the company printing the banners.

[John Waller]

Always a good idea to talk to your printer beforehand to see what they want in the file you send to them for printing.

[Bobby Henderson]

On the more basic level the print shop needs to state what kinds of files they can accept. Most of them can accept PDF files, but those need to be set up ready to print. If the shop has to do any minor edits to the files to make them print ready (or print & cut ready) they'll likely have to do that work in the host application the created the art file and then generate a PDF of that. In short, they need to have their own Creative Cloud applications to properly support Adobe files.

[John Waller]

In short, they need to have their own Creative Cloud applications to properly support Adobe files.

Agreed. I find that most do have Adobe apps.

[Bobby Henderson]

The better large format RIP applications (Onyx, RasterLink Pro, Caldera, etc) tend to have Adobe certified PDF print engines. They'll be able to handle anything baked into PDF files output by Illustrator, even things like freeform gradient fills and gradients on line strokes.