Create Future for Design & Printing

“We’re happy to assist you with all your printing needs, anytime, at our location. At 12907 140 Ave NW, Edmonton

Question and answers

Frequently Asked Questions

We’ve answered all the questions you may have before ordering a custom print. Not found a relevant answer to your query? We are happy to answer any questions you may have about your print at any time.

This is a good question, and gets asked a lot and the terms are often confused and misused.

Generally a flyer or a leaflet is a 1 page single sheet that is printed 1 or 2 sided.
A brochure is a sheet that is folded, whether it be in half or in thirds or multiple folds.
And then there are booklets, these are a bound book of multiple pages which have multiple sheets stapled or bound together to form a book or booklet.

Trim marks are lines that tell the printer where the edge of the page is (i.e where the page is to be cut). This is particularly important if your file has bleed (see below).
If your file does not have bleed you may not need to include trim marks and the file can be final size. Trim mark lines are on the outside of the page and are usually automatically placed by the software you use to create your print ready PDF.

gsm means grams per square metre. The lower the gsm, the thinner the paper/card stock and the higher the gsm, the thicker the paper/card stock.
A typical standard paper you would use in your home or office printer would be 80-90gsm. A letter head or with compliments slip are generally 100gsm. Standard brochures, flyers or handouts are typically 150-200gsm. Premium flyers, brochures, invitations and postcards are between 200-300gsm. Business cards start at 300gsm to 350gsm and for premium cards go from 400 to 600gsm for specialty cards.
Posters range from 150gsm to 220gsm in general depending on the size and purpose.
If you are unsure what gsm is best for you and your project, we are happy to help or recommend the most suitable for you.

CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key (black). These 4 colours are used in combination in print to lay onto white paper to produce almost any colour required. No colours produce nothing (white), all the colours combined create black and every combination in-between create all the colours you see on the page.

RGB stands for Red, Green and Blue. These 3 colours are used for all TV, screen and light based colour on a black screen. No colours produces nothing (black) and all colours at full intensity produce white, with every combination in-between creating all the colours we see.

As there are fundamentally different ways to create the colours we see, when RBG images are converted to CMYK during the printing process, some colour changes and undesirable outcomes can occur.
It is always recommended to convert all colours to CMYK for most printing products for best results. However, there are some exceptions; RBG produces the most vibrant colours for large large format printing such as Posters.

If you are unsure on what colour space your files or images are or what colour space to use for your project, please Contact Us and we will be happy to check your files and/or advise the best colour space to use for your project.

To print sharp and clear images, they need to be in high resolution. The standard is 300dpi (dots/pixels per inch). In general, images downloaded from the internet are low resolution; they might look great on the display screen, however they will look pixelated (blurry or fuzzy) when printed.
**For large format posters a lower resolution may be acceptable, please contact us and we can verify your artwork before you order.

You can check the resolution of your image file in photoshop or other photo editing programs or by simply doing the following:

On a PC: Right click on the file > select ‘Properties’ > select the ‘Details’ tab, scroll down and note the Image Resolution horizontal/vertical.

On a Mac: Open the image in preview > press Apple/command + I OR go to ‘Tools’ > ‘show inspector’ and note the ‘image DPI’.

If an image is 72dpi at final size, it is only suitable to be viewed on screen or on the web. Large format posters can be around 200dpi (depending on the image and text used on the image) but in general all print files should be 300dpi.

If you are unsure whether your images are high resolution or will be suitable for print, we are more than happy to check your files. Simply send us your image files and our friendly staff will be able to verify this for you.

Rich black is a combination of 40% cyan, 30% magenta, 30% yellow and 100% Key (black).Rich black is used for large black images or objects to ensure a nice deep solid black. 100% black on its own isn’t always enough to produce this so we add 40C, 30M and 30Y to boost the richness of the black.

IMPORTANT: Rich black should NEVER be used on text or thin lines or objects. 100% of all 4 CMYK colours should never be used as well.
A rich black can be created by creating a new spot colour in Indesign/Illustrator and setting the values to 40c, 30m, 30y, 100k

Templates are downloadable PDF files that you can use to setup your artwork to fit our die cut presentation folders, envelope sizes etc. For more information, see ‘How do i use the templates’ question below.

Print ready PDFs is a term used to describe how the file is setup and saved.

To achieve best print results, your print file must contain bleed, trim marks, high resolution images, fonts converted to outlines or embedded and transparencies set as required.

We offer a vast range of standard products that we currently list online, however we also have unlisted products to suit all your specific needs. So if you need a product that isn’t listed on our website or a quantity different from the options available or a different stock type/finishing, please get in touch with us and we can provide you with a quote.

Standard products ordered online:
Once you have chosen your desired product, filled out the required information and uploaded your artwork.
You must pay for the product in full before your printing can commence.

Custom jobs with a custom quote:
Custom quote jobs require the quote to be approved first. Once approved, you will receive an invoice, which must be paid in full before printing can commence.

Delivery times will depend on product type, quantity and the complexity of the order (for eg: finishing or special print effects).

For simple product printing (for eg: Standard business cards), you can expect delivery in 1-3 business day.
For complex and labour intense products (for eg: foiling, boolets, speciality finishing), we estimate delivery between 5-7 business days.
Products that require Foils can take up to 7-10 business days for delivery.

Yes! If you are not sure which product type best works for you or are confused about ordering online, please get in touch with us and our friendly staff will be happy to help.

‘Contact us’ immediately!

In most cases once an order is received and verified, it gets sent into production. Depending on what stage of production the job is, it may be possible to stop and hold the job before being printed.
Unfortunately, sometimes if the job is already in production we are unable to stop it in time.
If you need to make a correction or supply a new file for printing, an admin and file prep fee may apply. Please refer to our ‘Terms and Conditions’ for more information.

Even though we do everything to ensure you job is exactly how you envisioned it, on the rare occasion there may be issues with your final printed product.
If you find a problem, whether it be wrong stock type, image corruption, colour issues or damage to the printed product, please notify us immediately.
If we determine that Create Future is at fault, we will rectify the problem and have your job reprinted as soon as we can and deliver back to you at no cost. Please note that we cannot accept new artwork at this stage, we will re-print from the same files.
In some cases, we may need to request photo evidence or verification by returning part or the full job back to Create Future.

Please see our ‘Terms and Conditions’ for more information.