Bag Artwork Requirements: File Formats and Print Areas

Artwork is the part of a bag pack most often supplied as an attachment and least often specified. The buyer sends a file, writes "logo on front panel", and expects the result to be right. What the production team has is a picture with no size, no position, no tolerance and no process — and every one of those has to be decided by somebody.

The cost of that is a correction round. The first sample places the logo somewhere reasonable, the buyer says it is too low or too small, and the correction costs part of the 6-10 working day window for a question one line on the pack would have answered.

Which File Format and Why Does It Matter?

Vector for anything that will be cut, printed or embroidered: a vector file is a set of shapes rather than a grid of pixels, so it scales to any size without loss. The common formats are AI, EPS, SVG and PDF, and the exchange form used in print production is standardised as PDF/X. A raster file at screen resolution is the wrong artefact for any of it.

Raster has one legitimate use: a photographic image that is being printed as an image. There it needs to be supplied at the output resolution rather than the screen one, in a lossless format, with the colour space stated. A raster logo pulled from a website is neither of those things.

What Does the Colour Space Field Cover?

Which colour model the file is built in and how the colours are referenced. Print on a bag usually runs spot colours from a reference system or a process set, and the file has to say which. A logo built in one space and printed in another shifts, and the shift is visible on a brand colour in a way it is not on a neutral one.

The second half of the field is the substrate. The same ink sits differently on a coated polyester, an uncoated canvas and a film transfer, and a colour approved on one is not automatically right on another. Where a brand colour is critical, approve a physical proof on the actual shell rather than a proof on paper.

How Is Position Written So It Cannot Be Misread?

From a named, findable origin: a specific seam, a specific edge, or a specific corner — never "centred on the front panel", because a panel with a curve has more than one centre. Give two measurements where the position matters in two axes, and state which edges they are taken from.

Then add the tolerance. Print placement on a fixtured operation holds about plus or minus 3 mm; embroidery is looser at about plus or minus 5 mm because digitising and hooping add variance. Stating the number converts a disagreement about whether the logo is right into a measurement.

What Is a Print Area and How Is It Defined?

The maximum area a decoration can occupy on a panel, given as a rectangle in millimetres with its own position. It exists because a panel has seams, curves and hardware in the way, and a logo that fits the panel on a drawing can overrun a seam on the physical bag.

Define it on the drawing rather than in prose, and mark the keep-out areas: the seam allowance, the zip insertion, the strap anchor, and any hardware that sits behind the panel. A print area that ignores what is behind the cloth produces a decoration that cannot be applied flat.

How Does the Process Change the File and the Cost?

Completely. Screen print needs separated colours and a mesh count; a heat transfer needs a film and a press setting; embroidery needs a digitised file with stitch directions rather than a vector outline; silicone needs a mould; a woven label needs a loom file. Each is a different artefact made from the same logo.

That is why the process field matters more than the file. A vector logo is the source for all five and the input to none of them directly, and a pack that attaches the source without saying the process has asked somebody to choose and redraw.

What Does an Approval Cover for Artwork?

A physical proof on the actual shell, at the actual size, in the actual position, approved in writing and held as a reference. A digital proof on a screen is a colour approximation on a different substrate and it settles nothing about the printed result.

Where the programme runs more than one colourway, each colourway needs its own proof, because ink on a dark shell and ink on a light shell are different jobs. A single proof approved across four colourways is three unapproved jobs.

How Does Artwork Reach the BOM and the Calendar?

As a piece count per placement, with a spoilage allowance, plus the setup item: a screen, a film, a digitised file or a mould. The setup is a one-off charge and the pack should say whether it is amortised into the unit price or charged separately, because that is the difference between a price that holds on a repeat and one that does not.

The calendar effect is at the setup end. A screen is quick; a mould is not; a digitised file sits between the two. Where a programme is running to a tight date, the choice of process is also a choice about the calendar.

What Minimum Size Does Each Process Need?

Every decoration process has a floor below which the mark stops being legible, and the floor is different for each. Screen print loses fine detail to the mesh; embroidery loses it to the stitch length and to the pull of the thread on the cloth; a woven label loses it to the warp count. A logo that reads cleanly at 120 mm can be unreadable at 30 mm on the same process.

The field that matters most is the smallest element rather than the overall size. A minimum stroke width and a minimum text height, stated in millimetres for the process named, is a specification; a request to keep the logo legible is a hope. Where a logo has to shrink below the floor, the answer is usually to change process rather than to push the one that was chosen.

The second consequence is registration. A multi-colour screen print registers each colour separately, and the finer the detail the more visible a small mis-registration becomes. Where a design has tight tolerances between two colours, a single-colour treatment or a transfer removes the risk rather than managing it.

How Does Artwork Change on a Curved or Multi-Panel Bag?

A flat drawing is the wrong reference for a curved panel, because the decoration is applied to a surface that is not flat and the file has to describe the finished result rather than the artwork. On a bag with a shaped front panel, the print area is a shape rather than a rectangle, and the position is taken from two seams rather than from one corner.

The second change is distortion. A print applied across a seam, or across a panel that curves in two directions, will not read the same way it does on the screen, and the fix is usually to break the decoration at the seam rather than to try to align it. Where a design has to run across two panels, the pack should say which panel carries the registration.

The third change is what sits behind the cloth. A padded panel, a foam-layered back, or an internal frame changes the surface the decoration is pressed onto, and it changes the result at the edge of a mark more than in the middle. Where the panel is padded, a proof on the assembled panel is the only proof worth approving.

How Is Artwork Checked at Inspection?

Against the approved proof and the position on the pack, on the sample size drawn from ISO 2859-1 at General Inspection Level II with an AQL of 2.5. Placement, colour and adhesion are the three checks, and adhesion is the one that catches a transfer applied to a shell it does not suit.

Colourfastness belongs in the testing block rather than the artwork block, but the two are connected: a logo that passes placement and fails colourfastness is a decorative failure rather than a structural one, and it is still a return. The AATCC manual carries the colourfastness methods, and the pack should name the method number.

What Is the Short Rule?

Never attach a file without the six fields. Format, colour space, size, position, tolerance and process — and a physical proof on the real cloth before anything is approved.

Then keep the source file with the pack rather than in a separate folder. An artwork file that lives away from the specification it belongs to gets replaced, and the replacement is how a brand colour drifts over two seasons without anybody deciding it should.

And keep the proof with the file. A proof that was approved in writing and then filed separately is the evidence a placement dispute turns on, and it is the one artefact in the pack that cannot be reconstructed afterwards from the specification alone. Where a programme runs more than one decoration, one proof per placement is the rule rather than one per bag. Each proof is held against the placement it approves, and the set travels with the pack.

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