Design Specs and proportion help... (1 Viewer)

Spin2win300

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Hello all,

I am fairly new to the group but not to the game of poker or poker chips. I am looking to design my own set of chips. These designs will be used to be printed on blank chips from Alibaba. I am pretty savvy with Adobe photoshop. I have some questions if anyone is will to help guide me in the right direction, thanks.

1. If I design in photoshop what is the best way to convert the file to an "AI" file?
2. I see people referencing CYMK colors? I know this color spectrum, I am assuming I should choose colors from there?
3. Designing the face of the chip is easy. I am not sure on the rolling edge. I assume the edge design should be my chip diameter X pi (3.14) long?
4. How "Thick" or tall should my rolling edge design be?
5. If I create the face design are there designers in here that can just create my rolling edge design and clean up what I have?

Thanks for any and all help or input! happy new year to everyone!
 
1. Photoshop probably allows you to export as Illustrator. Try looking at the "Save As" or "Export As" functions.

2. Yes I think CMYK is what most ceramic printing is done with.

3. A good manufacturer will offer design templates for their product offerings.

4. See 3. above

5. There are many professional designers here that can give you a hand, I'm sure.
 
Welcome to the forum. Good to have more Houston members. I saw your design in the Cards Mold group buy thread. Looks good!

Have you considered trying to learn AI? Others here have told me it's not that hard, and apparently you can access an older version at no cost, although not technically 100% above board. I was in a rush when I put my design together, so I hired a designer. The ones here on the forum are very reasonable.

One suggestion I have if you'd like your chips to look a little more like real clay chips is to do irregular edge spots. Here's the design I used for my chips.

v5-Texas Flood Poker Club PRINT_Lineup.jpg


My designer was able add that little bit of irregularity to the spots very easily. If I hadn't been in a rush, I might have even asked him to do a little more on some of them.

I've been in the first Cards mold GB since the very beginning so feel free to hit me up if you have any questions at all about how the buy works.
 
Vector (AI) will always be sharper than raster-based art like Photoshop. If you can convert with desirable results, go with that. You’ll want your Photoshop file to be fairly high in resolution for the best results.
Otherwise, ceate the art in native Illustrator.

Work entirely in CMYK profile, as it will match the print press colors. Bright blues suffer the most with a conversion from RGB to CMYK, so keep that in mind. Neon colors are also not reproducible in CMYK.
 
I’d highly advise using Inkscape which is a freeware application highly similar to AI. You will have to do some post editing stuff to get CYMK file versions (tells the printers to run based off what ink is capable of vs. What a screen is capable of), but otherwise it will be way better than photoshop.

photoshop is a ‘raster’ application, it’s based in modifying pixel by pixel. It scales very poorly (becomes pixelated) and post editing in case of any issues is awful

vector programs like Inkscape and AI draw lines (Paths) instead of pixels. Since the paths are known, they can be scaled infinitely without becoming blurry or pixelated.

I’m working on my artwork now for a set, and the image below is work in progress but shows that Inkscape is capable of more than You need.

Good luck!


B4906608-5351-4285-86C0-4837FE5E7D17.png
 
I’d highly advise using Inkscape which is a freeware application highly similar to AI. You will have to do some post editing stuff to get CYMK file versions (tells the printers to run based off what ink is capable of vs. What a screen is capable of), but otherwise it will be way better than photoshop.

photoshop is a ‘raster’ application, it’s based in modifying pixel by pixel. It scales very poorly (becomes pixelated) and post editing in case of any issues is awful

vector programs like Inkscape and AI draw lines (Paths) instead of pixels. Since the paths are known, they can be scaled infinitely without becoming blurry or pixelated.

I’m working on my artwork now for a set, and the image below is work in progress but shows that Inkscape is capable of more than You need.

Good luck!


View attachment 607294
If the printer is requiring an AI file, I would stick with Adobe Illustraror of Photoshop. The requirement is likely made to ensure that they have the appropriate software if they need to edit the files before print.
Unless the Inkscape can output AI format?
 
Welcome to the forum. Good to have more Houston members. I saw your design in the Cards Mold group buy thread. Looks good!

Have you considered trying to learn AI? Others here have told me it's not that hard, and apparently you can access an older version at no cost, although not technically 100% above board. I was in a rush when I put my design together, so I hired a designer. The ones here on the forum are very reasonable.

One suggestion I have if you'd like your chips to look a little more like real clay chips is to do irregular edge spots. Here's the design I used for my chips.

View attachment 607278

My designer was able add that little bit of irregularity to the spots very easily. If I hadn't been in a rush, I might have even asked him to do a little more on some of them.

I've been in the first Cards mold GB since the very beginning so feel free to hit me up if you have any questions at all about how the buy works.

I've attempted to do this with edgespots, several times, with varying results. I'm OK with how they came out, but wondering if there's a "right" way to do this in Illustrator that I don't know of. Could you share how this was done with your edgespots?
 
If the printer is requiring an AI file, I would stick with Adobe Illustraror of Photoshop. The requirement is likely made to ensure that they have the appropriate software if they need to edit the files before print.
Unless the Inkscape can output AI format?
Most printers will accept PDFs, the CYMK PDF is the biggest bugbear. Has been for years, not sure why it hasn’t been addressed to be honest.
 
Most printers will accept PDFs, the CYMK PDF is the biggest bugbear. Has been for years, not sure why it hasn’t been addressed to be honest.
Probably because pdf is not very versatile as a final graphic file. Sure, it’s great if the creator has done all the preflight correctly, but if one aspect needs to be tweaked, it can be troublesome. AI and EPS are best
 
Hello all,

I am fairly new to the group but not to the game of poker or poker chips. I am looking to design my own set of chips. These designs will be used to be printed on blank chips from Alibaba. I am pretty savvy with Adobe photoshop. I have some questions if anyone is will to help guide me in the right direction, thanks.

1. If I design in photoshop what is the best way to convert the file to an "AI" file?
2. I see people referencing CYMK colors? I know this color spectrum, I am assuming I should choose colors from there?
3. Designing the face of the chip is easy. I am not sure on the rolling edge. I assume the edge design should be my chip diameter X pi (3.14) long?
4. How "Thick" or tall should my rolling edge design be?
5. If I create the face design are there designers in here that can just create my rolling edge design and clean up what I have?

Thanks for any and all help or input! happy new year to everyone!
I will chime in one 1. as well. You can convert from photoshop to a filetype that .AI can open (.eps), but by and large it will still be in raster format with the exception of a few elements if you were specific about in PS, and not really editable in AI.
I've attempted to do this with edgespots, several times, with varying results. I'm OK with how they came out, but wondering if there's a "right" way to do this in Illustrator that I don't know of. Could you share how this was done with your edgespots?
As with everything AI or PS, There's lots of ways to get to the same result, so whatever works and looks right for you will be "right".
 
I do my own initial designs and then send them to @timinater to make them print worthy. I just use PowerPoint and am able to export as a svg vector file and Tim cleans them up and makes .ai files to send to the printer.

Having worked with Tim on 5 designs now, I would never have anything printed without them first passing through his hands. I strongly recommend you do the same (to be fair, there are other great designers so no shade on them, I just have very good experiences with Tim working in this mode).
 
I've attempted to do this with edgespots, several times, with varying results. I'm OK with how they came out, but wondering if there's a "right" way to do this in Illustrator that I don't know of. Could you share how this was done with your edgespots?
Good to see that Tim answered your question. Because my answer was going to be... Ask Tim! :D I assumed it required some "freehand" art, but like I said, I'm completely ignorant at how these programs work, even though I would like to learn.
 

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