Designing a billboard - need help with specs & formatting

[SFWNorm]

Hello.

I've been tasked with designing a billboard. Although I've done a lot of basic graphic design for web, etc. using open source software, I'm a complete newb to Photoshop (and certainly to designing billboards). I've been given the following specs for this billboard design and was wondering if someone would be kind enough to spell out for me exactly how I need to go about creating this in PS.

Built at 9ppi @ 300 document resolution

Overall document size: 5.40” x 17.64”

DESIGN: Native file format of (Photoshop) or Adobe PDF (fonts embedded)

LINKS: .EPS (cmyk) .TIF (cmyk)

FONTS: Convert to outline

My specific questions:

1) Do I create a new document using CMYK at 17.64" x 5.4" at 300 DPI? But what about the 9 PPI? I don't see a setting for that?

2) I don't understand what the "LINKS" refers to or what I need to do with this info?

3) I'm not clear on the "FONTS" part either. Convert text to a drawing?

I'm asking these questions here because I'm in a time crunch and trying to get going as quickly as possible. Thanks in advance for any help.

[Test Screen Name]

Photoshop isn’t really a suitable tool unless the billboard is a single giant photo. Not clear from the spec if you need 9 ppi or 300 ppi. What size is the finished product?

[SFWNorm]

The billboard size will be 49' x 15', if that's what you're asking. The finished document, as mentioned in the specs above, is supposed to be 17.64" x 5.4", apparently?

I would rather create this in Inkscape (a vector program similar to Illustrator), which would make it a WHOLE lot easier for me, but the specs say that it wants native file formats of Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia FreeHand, Adobe InDesign, or QuarkExpress. The only one I have access to is Photoshop. Don't know if creating it in Inkscape, exporting as a PNG, and then embedding the PNG in Photoshop would work?

[Derek Cross]

InDesign would be a better application to produce the poster in – you would normally optimised the image(s) in Photoshop, placed them in InDesign where you'd add the text. You would then export the InDesign as an appropriate PDF for your printer.

But you can produce it in Photoshop (The native file format of Photoshop is PSD). Do they mean you'd produce the artwork at 17.64" x 5.4"and the printer's would scale it up to 49' x 15'?

The spec asks you to supply the fonts outlined, this is generally considered to be bad practice.

But a warning; be careful of accepting a brief that you may not be competent to undertake. If (say) the printing goes wrong in some way, you maybe held responsible and it might cost you a lot of money!

[SFWNorm · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the replies. The questions you are all asking in regards to size and resolution are the very questions that had me confused too. I was hoping that I was just missing something that would be obvious to you folks. 🙂

At any rate, I created a 17.64" x 5.4" @ 300 DPI test design in Inkscape, exported it in PNG format (the only export option in Inkscape, unfortunately), opened it in Gimp (could have used Photoshop, but I'm much more familiar with Gimp), exported it to PDF, and sent it to the billboard company asking if it was acceptable. They said it was!

So I guess there's no need to waste anyone else's time on this obscure question. 🙂 Thanks again for the replies. 

[Abambo]

Inkspace can export and save more formats then PNG and native Inkspace... which by chance is SVG.

[josephlavine]

I am not familiar with Inkscape, but am curious whether you create there and then export in an Adobe native format. This sounds like a good time to discuss the specifics with the client to ensure you are on the same page to what they require.

"Built at 9ppi @ 300 document resolution"

This alone has me wondering what they need