Dimensional Limit on Adobe Illustrator

This week I learned that yes, there is a limit to the dimensional size of a file created in Adobe Illustrator. 227.54 inches to be exact. No idea why as with vector artwork the file MB size wouldn’t have been especially large.

PROBLEM: I needed to provide a design that was 606 inches long to the printer full size at 150 pdi. What I was designing was banners to go along the front of court side scorers tables for the Southern Conference basketball championships. Since the design included a gradated background the printer wanted the file as one continuous piece, rather then breaking it into smaller banners.

SOLUTION: The printer’s second choice was a file at 1/2 scale at 300 dpi, but unfortunately that was still larger then the Illustrator limit. So I gave them 1/4 scale at 600 dpi. First time I have not been able to give a printer their preferred file size/format.

InDesign Quick Mock Up for Grayscale Photos

PROBLEM: Needing a quick way to include grayscale photos in layout draft while working in InDesign.

When designing brochures where images were to be printed in grayscale I came across the need for a quick way to mock that up inside InDesign. Since I wanted to show the client choices for stock photography, I needed to use low resolution comp images in the drafts. As such, it didn’t make sense to put the time in to open each image in Photoshop and change it to grayscale before placing in the layout. And it would have been confusing to the client to have the images placed in color when we were planning to print in black.

SOLUTION: Fill the image frame with black. Select the photo only, within the frame, and change image effects to “luminosity.”

This makes an image that in reality still contains color, but it emulates grayscale well enough to not be distracting and enabled my client to review the drafts and make decisions on the stock photos. On my end it made it easy to change proposed stock images quickly and painlessly when the client wanted to see additional options.