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Graphic Design Guidelines   Graphic Design Guidelines Printable Version  
—for our clients—

YOU...YOUR ADVERTISING...OUR PRODUCT, & OUR PHILOSOPHY.
Probably about one third of our clients submit their own ads and artwork, while the other two thirds
rely on our design services (which are free of charge) to create their advertising for them. If you wish
to submit your own ad, or want us to incorporate some combination of your artwork (logos, photos,
graphics, etc.) into an ad that we design, we have guidelines which must be adhered to in order to
maintain high quality output. If we were to allow you to submit bad quality artwork, it would not only
ruin YOUR ad, but diminish the quality of the ads around it. It’s like real estate: it only takes one run
down house to bring down the values of ALL the properties on the block.

OUR DESIGNERS:

Your Town Community Guide offers design services free of charge to our clients who wish to have
their ads created. Our graphic artists come to us from diverse sectors of the design and advertising
fields. The common elements they share are their levels of extensive training, experience and skill.
We don’t throw a few desktop publishers into a room and call it a “Design Department”. Our graphic
artists are REAL DESIGNERS with REAL CREDENTIALS. They can design from the bottom-up, or take
whatever you submit and prepare it for high quality 4 color printing. We encourage you, our clients,
to allow us to design your ads. Our graphic artists are not simply good designers, they are experts in
designing for the ever-changing technology inherent to the printing industry.

CLIENT SUBMITTED Artwork:

Should you want to supply us with an ad already completed, there are several ways you can do this.
Quite often our clients will submit artwork or photos which they want incorporated into an ad that
we design for them. This is perfectly acceptable, also. There are, however, certain guidelines which
we have. Our guidelines are discussed below. If your materials are not of a quality or form which meet
our standards, there is a high liklihood we will be contacting you for something more acceptable.

If you are unsure about what you intend to submit, or feel unclear about anything described below,
always feel free to contact us. We can help clear up any confusion, answer all your questions, and help
resolve quality issues by examining alternative solutions. In fact.... finding SOLUTIONS is what we’re
here for. There is a simple logic to assisting you in this way: It makes our work much less difficult, and
it makes you more satisfied with the outcome of your ad.

You can contact our design department by calling: 603.421.0502;
or by E-mailing us Email Instruction Guidelines Printable Version  
at: INFO@YTCG.COM

Basically, there are three ways to submit ads and/or artwork to us:

ON DISCS (CD’s, floppy, Zip),
ELECTRONICALLY (via E-mail), and
HARD COPY (photos, ad slicks, camera ready art, other printed material)

FOR NON–DESIGNERS
Most non-designers don’t have professional layout software. But you don’t have to be a professional
designer to submit acceptable files. The following are our guidelines:

ELECTRONIC FILES (discs, or via E-mail)
We operate in a Macintosh environment. But Windows PC formats are acceptable. If you are lucky
enough to have your own designer or agency do your work, our guidelines for them are very straightforward
and easy to understand. If you are submitting the files yourself—unless you use the same
program we use—you’ll probably be giving us files in one, or several of the following formats.

WE CAN ACCEPT:

• Acrobat PDF Files of print quality resolution (300 dpi and above)
**JPEG files of 300 dpi or higher
**(be very careful here. Most JPEG’s are very low
resolution and only suitable for the WEB. We
find them troublesome, and over half of them
are not acceptable).
• TIFF files of 300 dpi or higher
• EPS files (300 dpi or higher)
• VECTOR files (ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR)
• BITMAP files of 1200 dpi or higher
• WORD documents (text only)

WE CAN'T ACCEPT: Please don’t send any of the following:

• PUBLISHER files
• EXCEL documents
• WORD documents with images embedded
(unless you also send the image as a separate high resolution file)
• WEB graphics, or any of the above acceptable
formats (PDF, JPEG, TIFF, EPS) that are 72 dpi or lower.

HARD COPY MATERIALS (photos, ad slicks, illustrations)
We ask that you provide us with “Camera Ready” print quality artwork. Please make sure photos are
exposed properly and clear & sharp.

ARTWORK THAT IS NOT acceptable for us to reproduce:

• jacket patches
• yellow page graphics
• web graphics downloaded from the internet (resolution is unacceptable for
printing)
• most business card graphics, and all business card photos
• be careful of non-professional photos which may be blurry, overexposed,
underexposed or any photos of logos or signs. Instead of taking a photo of
a logo or sign, please send usable artwork of the logo.
• Newspaper Graphics

FOR DESIGNERS AND/OR AGENCIES

• All color and grayscale images must be at least 300 dpi at the final size used,
All bitmap images must be at least 1200 dpi at the final size used.
• All files must be saved using CMYK for color images. (grayscale may be used for
black and white). RGB, Indexed color, or Spot color images are not acceptable.
These images must be converted to CMYK.
• Acceptable image file formats are: tiff, eps, and Hi-Res JPEG.
• Preferred formats to receive print ready jobs in are: tiff, eps, and pdf.
(Hi-res jpg format is also acceptable.) **This is a MUST for CorelDraw and Publisher
users, as well as other unsupported software.
• Acceptable native application files are: QuarkXPress, InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop.
• If sending native files, do not forget the fonts and images you used to create your files.
• If you are using a drawing program, such as Illustrator, convert all your text to outlines.
• Create solid black areas using a “Rich Black,” consisting of 30% Cyan, 30% Yellow,
30% Magenta and 100% Black, rather than black only.
• Please use unique file names to clearly identify your files.
• Remove all unused elements from the pasteboard area of your documents.
• Please ensure your that all copy is at least 1/8” away from all edges of your ad.
• Files not conforming to these standards may not pass our Quality Control checkpoint
and will be returned to you for repair and re-submission. This will delay your print job.

SUPPORTED SOFTWARE: We can accept files in any of the following design programs:

• QuarkXpress (save no higher that version 5.0)
• Photoshop (any format)
• Illustrator (any version including CS 2)
• InDesign (any version including CS 2)
• Acrobat (any version including V. 7 Professional)

If you are providing a complete ad’s native files (laid out in QUARK or InDesign) on disc,
make sure you include: the layout (which is in QuarkXpress or InDesign); all images; and
ALL fonts (screen fonts, printer fonts, and font suitcase). TrueType and Postscript fonts are both acceptable.
ABSOLUTELY NO MULIPLE MASTER FONTS (MM) OR dFONTS. We suggest you
outline your fonts if your ad is camera ready and needs no changes.

AD SIZES:

ADS APPEARING IN THE COMMUNITY GUIDES®:
Our Community Guide ad sizes are built from our single ad size, vertically:

our single (1/8 page) ad size is 3.75 in. W X 2.5 in. H
our double (1/4 page) ad size is 3.75 in. W X 5.0 in. H
our triple (3/8 page) ad size is 3.75 in. W X 7.5 in. H
our 1/2 page ad can be 2 different sizes, 3.75 in. W X 10 in. H or 7.5 in. W X 5 in. H
our full page ad size is 7.5 in. W X 10 in. H

Other sizes or configurations must be arranged with the graphics department.

ADS APPEARING IN THE POCKET MAPS®:
There are two ad sizes available in our pocket maps:

Full Panel 3 3/8 in. W X 4 3/8 in. H
Half Panel 3 3/8 in. W X 2 3/16 in. H

HOW TO CONTACT US:
Our Graphic Design Department is available Monday – Friday, 9:30 am – 4:00 pm for assistance.
Please call us if you have any questions concerning your advertising, or how to prepare your files.
The Design Department’s phone number is: 603 421-0502.

If you are sending us electronic files via E-mail, please send them to; <info@ytcg.com>. Make sure
you name your ad something unique and identifiable. Your business or company name in the title is
always the best bet. Avoid names like; “MAP AD” or “AD FOR GUIDE”, or any name so general that we
won’t know who it belongs to by looking at the file name.

If you are sending us hard copy, “camera ready” materials, discs or instructions via USPS, UPS, FED-EX
or any other shipping method; please send your material(s) to:

Your Town Community Guide
Graphics Dept.
P.O. Box 325
Londonderry, NH 03053