Business card illustrator file from 99design

Content
1

Hello,

I started a contest on 99designs for a business card. I have selected the winning design. The designer sent me files but I’m not sure what to do with the files. I have a .ai file and .eps file. Both seem to be identical when opened in Adobe illustrator. I have a few questions.

  1. Both give me an error when opening which looks like this: http://forums.adobe.com/servlet/JiveServlet/downloadImage/2-3599658-64144/310-149/DownloadedFile.png
    Why does that message pop up? If I just press ok, the file opens fine so should I be worried?

  2. One .ai file contains 4 graphics:

  1. The front
  2. The back
  3. The front again labeled “For Print” (and I noticed the text is not editable)
  4. The back again labeled “For Print” (and I noticed the text is not editable)

Is the file I received normal? I expected to receive two files one of the front and one of the back. That would make it easy to upload to a print site. Now I’m guessing I need to crop out the print front card and crop out the print back card then upload it?

Also, I can change the text on the editable card but when I try to change the text on the “for print” card, I can’t. It lets me select it but it acts more like a vector shape than font. So how would I re-generate the print cards from the editable ones?

Thanks

2

I’m not sure we have enough info to help here. Firstly, that link you gave doesn’t work. Secondly, some layers may be locked in the layers palette, so you could check that first. It may be that the text has been converted to outlines to save you having to load the font on your computer. In that case, you can’t change it back to text.

I’d say it’s unlikely that you’d need to crop anything, though.

3

Doesn’t look like I can edit my post so here is the correct link: http://forums.adobe.com/servlet/JiveServlet/downloadImage/2-3599658-64144/310-149/DownloadedFile.png

I think it has something to do with the file being made in cs3 and I have cs5.

I checked the layers and they are not locked.

4

I’m not an expert at this, but I’d say there’s nothing to be worried about in this case. As you say, it appears simply to be a case of opeining the files in a new version of Illustrator.

5

ok, thanks.

I’m more worried about issue #2. As the file has front and back which I can edit the text. Then below that it has the front and back again “for Print” and it also has the cross hairs for the printer. That text seems to be converted to a vector graphic so I can’t change it. I guess I need to know how they generated that. Also, it doesn’t seem like cmyk

6

It sounds like the designer has given you a file with live and editable text (your first lot of files) and then converted the text to a non-editable form called (Print). This is a common thing when designing when you want clients to have original artwork if they want to update something like a date eg. 2012 to 2013. But you also want to lock the design in place so it doesn’t make problems for a printer. The live text version requires the correct font to be installed to replace the text and with the licencing issues over font distribution the commercial printers and designers don’t always have the same fonts, nor are they allowed to distribute them to a client (even if they use it in their design). So the answer is to make and supply these two versions. One live editable version and the second print version that is locked in place.

You should be able to check the colour space easily in Illustrator it is usually listed in brackets beside the name of the file when it is open. Otherwise go to File>Document Colour Mode and see what is ticked.

7

The layers are not locked… The text was somehow converted to vector on the “printable version”. However, the designer wasn’t too great at english so I created a screenshot with arrows on stuff needing to be fixed. Finally, he submitted a new file with the font and bleed fixed. I have since received printed version from vista print and they turned out great!