ACT poster, program and newsletter art requirements

Please provide this to your production artist.

Questions? contact the publicity coordinator at publicity@albanycivic.org.

• Delivering artwork
• Acceptable file formats
• Posters
  • Required content
• Program art
• Newsletter art
• T-shirt art

We are currently printing our own posters, newsletter, programs & brochures, as well as paper props when needed. We are using a Toshiba e3511 printer-copier.

Delivering artwork

In all cases (all print jobs), please deliver the artwork to the publicity coordinator, completed and ready to go (including scaled to the proper size) via CD (notify her via email, then leave the CD in her box in the ACT Mail Room), bring it to the theater on an ISB drive, or send the file via email. Note: for very larger files, a better option may be to use a service such as YouSendIt.Com that allows you to upload the file to the Web and specify an e-mail address that will get a notice of where it can be downloaded.

Acceptable file formats

• TIFF files, high-resolution .JPG files or .PDFs (set to high resolution). The final resolution of your artwork should be at least 300 DPI, at the dimensions specified below, in order to print acceptably.

Posters

SIZE. Posters are printed on 11×17 paper. Artwork can be as large as 11×17 (with minimum 1/4 inch margin all round).

COLOR OPTIONS. Full color, B&W with spot color, straight B&W, or grey tones. Full color, B&W, or B&W with spot color produce the best posters on our printer. BE FOREWARNED: the finer the screen/gradation in grey tones, the harder it is for the printer to do a good job, may have to be printed in “color” in order to get the gradations to print well; that boosts the per-item cost to nearly eight times of regular B&W/grey tone.

CONTENT. Required Poster Information:

NOTE: To lessen typing errors, you may wish to copy and paste any text in quotes, below.

• “Albany Civic Theater presents”
• EITHER: The number of our season (2008-09 is our 58th season), OR “Since 1950”
• Title of play/musical
• Author of play/Authors of book, lyrics & music of musical
• “Presented by special arrangement with [NameOfScriptService]” (this can be in very small type)
• Anything else specifically required by contract, including font sizes & placement for title, playwright’s name, etc. If you have not seen a copy of your play contract, contact the treasurer.
• Director of play
• Music Director (as appropriate)
• Performance dates and times, including year.
  • OPTION 1: You can indicate matinees with a “(m)” after the date, thus:
    April 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 10(m) 14, 15, 16, 17(m), 21, 23, 2005, at 8pm,
    matinees (m) at 2:30pm
  • OPTION 2: OR, you can isolate the matinees entirely onto a separate line, thus:
    April 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, 16, 21, 23, 2005, at 8pm
    April 10, 17 at 2:30pm
• Special performances such as benefits or odd times should also be specified.
• Ticket prices. Check the Web site for current-season prices. For special events, check with the ticket coordinator at boxoffice@albanycivic.org.
• Ticket purchase available online at albanycivic.org, or at our theater 45 minutes before curtain
• Theater address: 111 First Avenue W in downtown Albany
• Web address: www.albanycivic.org
• Content warning, as applicable. See your production manual for details.

Program Art

All artwork must be B&W or grey tones. See warning, above, about grey tone printing quality issues. If you are using grey tones, please provide the publicity coordinatior with the art early so a test printing can be done; we may have to ask that it be redone. Because of the smaller size, it’s often better to use an element from your poster design than to try to convert the entire design.

• Dimensions: 5 5/8″ wide by 7 12″ tall. Must contain:
  • Albany Civic Theater presents
  • Artwork including play title
  • Playwright(s)*
  • Season (2008-09 is our 58th season)
  • Performance dates (range and year, i.e., “July 11-26, 2008”)

* Check production contract for type size requirements

Newsletter art

ARTWORK. If art is provided for the newsletter, it must be B&W only. Grey tones will not work well unless the gradient is pretty “rough.” Size is not really an issue (unless tiny detail will get lost or muddled in shrinking it to size).

T-shirt art

It’s entirely up to each show whether to have T-shirts printed; if you do, please use the theater’s authorized printer, as they give us a good price break in exchange for getting all our show orders.

T-shirt art typically will need to be created as one- or two-color separations, and works best when the art contains neither a lot of fine detail nor large blocks of solid color. Talk to the printers for details.

With a little planning, your artist may be able to adapt the program art for the T-shirt.