Please send an email with your print ready artwork and instructions or come into the shop. You can use WeTransfer or similar for multiple files and large files. If no instructions are given this could result in delays.

Credit or debit card over the phone

Cash or debit/credit card in the shop

Online Banking

We normally ask for the payment when placing the order.

- We occasionally offer small discounts to charities.

- We offer 10% discounts to students and NHS workers.

We don’t book appointments. You can email your order and we will contact you to confirm the price and turnaround.

We offer printed proofs. If you would like to go ahead with your order this is included in the price of your printing. If you don't proceed the minimum charge for the proof is £6.00 +vat (£7.20). If you would like to see another proof of amended artwork, there will be an additional charge for it, depending on a time and material used. Every care is taken to ensure your proof is correct, however, you are requested to check your proof thoroughly before we proceed to print as mistakes cannot be rectified once they have been passed for print; we don’t check for spelling mistakes on supplied artwork.
Design quotes are for a maximum of 5 proofs. Further proofs can be created at a relative additional charge.

A pdf file is preferred as the formatting is much more stable when opened on different devices. We can sometimes work form other files if needed (word, power point, jpeg etc.), we will send you back a pdf proof to check, if the pdf proof doesn’t appear correct, you will need to send us a new pdf file. PDF files are much better when your file has text on, than image files like PNG and JPG which breaks the text into dots and can pixelate quite badly when printed.

- Files should be supplied with at least 300 dpi (dots per inch) resolution, if lower, prints might be pixelated.

- Please supply files in CMYK colour mode – RGB & Pantone colours will automatically be converted to CMYK in the print process, however by converting the colours in your file first of all, you will normally get a better colour match.

- Please supply files with 3mm bleed when colour goes to the edges.

Bleed is the area to be trimmed off, please supply the artwork with at least 3mm bleed, as there can be a small amount of movement when printing, bleed will help to avoid the prints being trimmed with a visible white border. In addition any text or critical images should be a further 3mm in from the crop line to avoid the chance of clipping.SAMPLE

RGB (Red, Green and Blue) colour mode is best for digital work, while CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Key/Black) is used for print products. CMYK (colours that absorb light – they are known as subtractive colours) is measured in percentages – each colour is made up by adding somewhere between 0% and 100% of each of the four options to the mix. That means CMYK has a range of 4 x 100 or a possible 10 million different colours. RGB (colours that emit light- are known as additive) which has three colours each with a range of 0 to 255 has range of 3 x 256, which means a possibility of over 16 million different colours.

Dots or Pixels per inch, the larger the number of dots / pixels in a square inch, the better the quality, aim for 300dpi for actual size printing, or higher if your image needs to be enlarged.

Vector : an illustration using lines, especially good for logos, easily scaled without loss of quality. Raster : an image made up of dots/pixels - cannot be enlarged without loss of quality.

A0 : 1189mm x 841mm

A1 : 841mm x 594mm

A2 : 594mm x 420mm

A3 : 420mm x 297mm

A4 : 297mm x 210mm

A5 : 210mm x 148.5mm

DL : 210mm x 99mm

A6 : 148.5mm x 105mm

A7 : 105mm x 74.25mm

Business card : 85mm x 55mm

Pull up banners : 2100mm (2000mm plus 100mm bleed at bottom) x 850mm)

- GSM - refers to weight of paper (grams per square meter), we can print on 80-350gsm.

- Microns – refers to thickness, this is normally for film and polyester products. Weight doesn’t directly relate to thickness, an uncoated product of the same weight will be thicker than a coated product, coating is heavy so this makes the material thinner to maintain the same weight.

Forest Stewardship Council is a global forest certification system established for forests and forest products. FSC-certified paper is from sustainably sourced materials and has an audited trail straight from the source to delivery.

Southampton Design and Print only normally use FSC paper.

Digital printing allows a job to go from a print ready computer file, directly to the printer and onto the paper. Lithographic or ‘litho’ printing uses wet ink and printing plates. Digital printing is more suitable for shorter runs and litho printing for longer runs.

NCR ‘no carbon required' paper is used for duplicate and triplicate forms. Most commonly used for order forms and bill pads, where one copy is given to the customer and one retained etc, these can be glued into pads or sets, and can be numbered if required.

Scoring refers to the process of making a crease in paper so it will fold easier. It helps to prevent a fold from cracking or breaking on the thicker paper or card.

Single fold / half fold- the sheet is folded once in the middle.

C-fold/Roll fold - usually used for trifold leaflets -this type of fold is where each page folds in on itself.

Z–fold (concertina) - when paper is folded with each fold in the opposite direction to the one before it.

Gate fold - where a sheet has two inward folds that meet together.

Cross fold - the large sheet will be folded in half and then folded again one or more times.