You can pick out a save the date card, save the date magnet, or invitation design on this website and ask for color changes. On most of the design detail pages, there is a link named “Request a personalized proof”. You would click on that and go from there. Sometimes a background can be switched out, or another image replaced. Not all of your ideas may work out, but asking does not hurt. Try to remember that small magnets are limited in how much information can be displayed in fun, fancy fonts. The main goal when designing for your project will be to make sure your text will be readable.

As far as a completely new design- also can do. Hand drawn floral graphics? Custom location maps? New save the date? Something to advertise your business? All of these are options.

If you don't see it on the website, contact the designer, Angela.

And now for the nitty gritty details:

>> Process & Cost & Time

Simple designs are not going to cost extra. On the other hand, if you want something that requires the designer to hand draw a complicated image, it will cost extra. How much? That depends on your project! It depends on what you have in mind, and the size the image(s) will be printed at.

For projects with a lot of custom drawing, such as a specific floral pattern, the designer will first create a rough pencil sketch. The rough sketch is emailed to you before the artist will proceed to render the complete design on the computer. Often, you will charged before the artist renders the complete design, but not until after you have seen the rough sketch.

To get started on a custom design, you would contact the designer. Let her know for what size you would like to design printed, and what you have in mind for the design. Any ideas for the color? Elements? Theme? Wording?

Timing is highly variable per project. As of January 2012, response times to each email average two days. (Average- this means that sometimes the response will be faster, sometimes it will be slower). You could expect it to take several emails to finalize a design.

>> Respecting copyright

You can submit photographs and images for the designer to use as inspiration, but note that she isn't going to just straight up copy. Maybe you like the color from design A, the font from design B, and the “perfect pair” theme. The designer can put something together for you. But if you just like a design and want the designer to recreate it as is... that she won't do. It would literally get her kicked out of her stationery guild.

This issue comes into play with the popular sports ticket magnet and card save the dates. STDO can not use a copyrighted team logo without permission. The designer can perhapse try out another graphic that represents the team- such as a football helmet in the right color, or the team initials in a similar font style, or just something like a baseball that represents the sport.

>> Requesting the design file for your custom design.

If you get a custom design made, that doesn't necessarily mean that you get the high resolution files later for no additional cost. If you plan on asking for them, let the designer know at the beginning of the project.

There are several reasons for this. If STDO is printing the project, the designer might use a modified version of one of STDO's designs. She wouldn't do this if she were planning on selling you the design file. Additionally, any custom graphics made will be priced out with the thought that the designer retains the rights to the new graphics and could reuse them for other projects. She wouldn't release high resolution copies into the public that contained components of her own designs. Another big issue is that the designer can use any graphics available to her as a commercial graphic artist if STDO will be printing the project. Such as graphics and fonts that she has paid for. STDO can not hand over high resolution files to you with proprietary graphics.

>> Submitting a Design for STDO to print:

You may be interested in having STDO print a design on something like a magnet or card. STDO will need to see your design to determine if this is possible. If you have created something in Word or PowerPaint, or another similar program, the designer will have to recreate your design for printing. Those programs do not produce print quality print graphics. Often, the designer will need to recreate designs to accommodate the needed resolution, size, margins, and color scheme.

Customers will sometimes try to send images they found on the internet to use- this generally does not work. The size & resolution that online images have is much lower than would be needed to print.

The most common issues that customers run into when they try to submit their own designs are: border size, how close text is to the edge of the product, and, text size. The designer can provide PDF files at the correct resolution with bleed and safety margins for you to work with.

A few rules of thumb:
1) Do not move text very close to the edge of your design.
2) If you are going to include a border next to the edge of your design, it should be at least 3/16ths of an inch thick. No skinny borders near the edge of the design.
3) No tiny text/wording! Fonts like "Times" can be as small as 12 point. Swirly fonts like "Scriptina" are much thinner, though, and have an even larger minimum size.

Even if you are familiar with graphic design for the internet, you might not know everything about design for print (like bleed and safety margins) so if you can provide a working PSD or AI file for the designer to fiddle with, that works best.

Now to the bad news: No discount. STDO products are currently priced just right; There is no extra charge built in for design work. Which means that there is nothing to discount for you submitting your own design. The pricing tables for magnets and cards that you find around the website is the final pricing.

>> Design Only (logo, monogram, something to print at home)

You can buy designs by themselves, to print on your own or send to another printer. This means you can have the designer create something for any type of product, and size. Files would be emailed to you, usually as a PDF, JPG, TIF, etc. At the start of the project, definitely let the designer know what requirements you or your printer has. Cost depends on the complexity of the project.

Having the designer create something new for you to print will cost more than having her create something that STDO will print. If STDO is printing it, you don't need the high resolution copies, and then the designer can use any graphics available to her as a commercial graphic artist. STDO can not hand over high resolution files to you with proprietary graphics. Definitely make this decision prior to getting started on the design.

Logos are something that will typically cost a bit more than something like a save the date design because if you have STDO make a logo, you will definitely want the high resolution print files. Additionally, you won't want STDO to resell that logo to someone else, right? So even a logo with simple graphics, well, that is a simple graphic that must be created for your logo, not picked out from previously made artwork, and then you presumably get the rights to that logo along with the graphics made for it.

>> Caricatures

Now these are one of the few things STDO doesn't do. The only designer on staff (Angela Bauter) can create people looking graphics, but in her experience, she doesn't capture people's features exactly as they want them. You can send a caricature to STDO for use in a design though.

Note: STDO will retain the copyright on any design work for promotional purposes. Any samples that are posted on this website will have critical information blocked out or edited. STDO will not use your photos without permission.

· Check out the custom map section.
· Learn more about photographic designs.