What you asked us:

Our Response:

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I received my test mug yesterday. Thank you very much. Your service was speedy, and the color and resolution are both excellent! I was aware before I ordered my test mug (from reading your excellent and very informative website) that the wrap-around printing is not guaranteed to line up with the top and bottom edges of the mug, and you explain why. Sadly, the resulting curve is barely acceptable for my image and my taste. I was hoping that it would be better...  Questions: 1) Does the wrap-around curve tend to be roughly the same every time, so that if I can modify my file to compensate, most of the mugs will look reasonably straight (assuming I compensate correctly)? Or does it sometimes curve up, sometimes down, sometimes not at all, etc. 2) I am fairly certain that there is no way in Photoshop to compensate, i.e. curve a picture along a desired line. Do you know of any decent quality software that does allow this type of manipulation of raster images? Or perhaps a method for doing it in Photoshop? 3) If the curve is fairly consistent, and there is a way to compensate digitally, have you considered offering this compensation as a service, so that wrap around images are more likely to be visually aligned with the mug? I realize that there is no limit to how picky a customer can be about their files, so I understand your reluctance to modify their artwork in any way, but consider that you already down-sample them if they are too high resolution (I read this on your site), also you slightly rotate images when they are simple 3"x3" per side to compensate. I think that if the end result makes it come out better in general, it would be a win for you and for (most of) your customers. I'm certain that you must have gotten a few complaints from customers about this issue in the past.  I am mostly concerned about my own mug order, but I also like to help others. If I can figure out some simple way to modify my file (assuming that there is any reason to try to do so), perhaps I could pass it along to you. Thanks for any information and thanks for the beautiful mug	Thank you for your e-mail and very cognizant observations about the "curving" of decorations on our coffee mugs. Please permit us to answer your questions in the order you offered them: 1.) The wrap-around curve tends to be roughly the same every time and can be compensated somewhat. As we note elsewhere in our web site, we do "rotate" individual mug images that fit on a single mug site to compensate a bit for this "curvature" issue. (But please note that not all mugs are created equal and some differences will always exists from one mug to another and we have no influence over this as we purchase these mugs on the open market because we do not make nor fabricate any blank mugs.) You can determine the curvature very easily by following these ease steps for an 11-oz coffee mug, for example: - cut a piece of paper perfectly perpendicular to this size: 8.33" x 3.0"; - wrap it around the mug and tape it tight so it'll stay on the mug; - measure the distance between the two paper ends where the mug handle is; - you'll see that the distance is not the same at the top and bottom of the paper, indicating that the mug is not cylindrical; - still taped to the mug, use some device that can hold a pencil horizontal and now turn the mug against it so that it traces a line on the taped paper; - trace at the top and bottom of the paper (horizontal lines); - use a draftsman's "square" to trace the two vertical end lines; - taking the paper off the mug, you can now clearly see the curvature of the area that can be decorated; - if you can now create a digital image file that totally follows this curvature, the resulting mug decoration should be sitting fairly "square" on this particular mug, but might not on another. 2.) As you suggest, we too have not been able to find a method with PhotoShop to compensate for this curvature effect (maybe it exists but we have not yet discovered it) for the entire contents of a digital raster/bitmap image. We did, however, try to create a mask/template in a vector application (CorelDraw, in our case) that follows the curvatures obtained under step 1, above. We then enlarged our bitmap/raster file a bit so that it would fill the entire space of the curved vector template. Using the mask/template, we would obtain a curved image on its outer bounds. However, any "straight" line within the original raster/bitmap image would not be compensated with this method and still appear curved on the finished coffee mug decoration. For your information, the desired effect of total curvature can be obtained with the use of a vector program where an entire vector graphics can be distorted by using the "envelope" tool, yet, alas, this is useless for raster/bitmap images. 3.) As indicated in many parts of our web site, we always use customer-supplied digital image files exactly as submitted to us, that is: AS IS (and will only down-sample files that have too high a resolution, which almost never, ever has happened). At the present time and until we are able to obtain specially-coated blank coffee mugs that are always perfectly cylindrical, there is very little we can do about this curvature effect. We can, however offer some suggestions on how to "hide" some of the effects (not within an image of course, but only as far as the image perimeter is concerned): - wrap the image within a perimeter design that has a wavy form or similar, thereby disguising the curvature effect; - crate a total up-down mug decoration (a decoration that reaches from the very top to the very bottom of the mug) but this type of decoration carries a very hefty price surcharge per mug and does not "rectify" any straight lines within a raster/bitmap image either; - have your mugs imprinted with rotary screen printing process whereby your image is printed directly onto the coffee mug (one color at the time) and not on paper first, as in our full-color process. Please note that screen printing is great and inexpensive for a few spot colors but does not produce the full-color, high-resolution mug decorations our sublimation process generates. We're very sorry not to be able to offer you a better solution to this problem as it is created not by us and our printing processes but rather by the substrate, which in our case is a ceramic coffee mug that was and probably never will be created perfectly cylindrical. (Our stainless-steel coffee mugs are more cylindrical than any of our ceramic coffee mugs but their "silvery" surface does not do justice to a full-color mug decoration that requires "white" as an important component not only as a background from which to project or stand out from, but also as a color component of an image, as our printing inks/colors are calibrated/optimized to print on a white substrate primarily. We hope to have been able to answer your questions to the best of our knowledge.
I figured out how to modify my image, and based on my own tests, I am fairly confident that the curve I chose will work reasonably well.   For your information, I modified my file using Adobe Illustrator, using the "Arc" filter, with a curvature of 1.5%. Before I did that, I used your suggested method to make a drawing of the curve from the test mug. I printed my curved image, cut it out, and found that the printed arc curve lined up *very* closely with the measured curve. I then taped it tightly to the mug, and was satisfied that it compensated adequately.    I have placed an order with the new image. You might look at the result, and if you agree that it is an improvement, you could suggest this technique (for handle to handle) on your website. (If the customer was doing a image that was less than handle to handle, they would probably want less than 1.5% arc)   Another way that a customer could warp the image would be to buy a plug-in called Squizz for Photoshop, I'm fairly certain it would work, but it costs $125. Squizz allows you to make a curve, and save it so you can reuse it over and over.   I know that you don't want to modify customers' artwork in any way, but I still encourage you to consider finding a way that you can offer curve correction as a service, if desired, so that customers who don't have Illustrator or Squizz can still get more professional looking results.   Thanks again for your help, and I am looking forward to receiving my next mug order.   I used Illustrator version 10 for Windows, and I later realized that it is an effect, not a filter, called "warp" and I chose the shape "arc". I don't know if it is available in version 9.   I hear what you are saying about Squizz, I also would be hesitant; I read some of the similar negatives about it (uses tons of memory, slow, etc). Still, I'm pretty sure it could be made to work, in a pinch.   And I also hear what you are saying about your "typical" customer. I realize that I am not the norm; sometimes I drive people crazy with my drive for perfection :)   But if you add the tip to your (already very thorough and ) excellent website, someone like myself might be able to make use of it. Like I said, you should look at the mugs I ordered to see if it really helps, before considering whether to use it as a tip.   Also, be aware that I did the warp/arc using a higher resolution version of my file, then down sampled it, to help minimize any artifacts along the edge of the curve, because when I first did it at print resolution, I saw a little bit of stair-stepping.   Take care,   (Giftmugs Note: We can "arc" certain mug designs so that they appear more "parallel" at the top and bottom of the mugs. However we do not guarantee the final appearance of such "arced" images and always recommend that the customer order a sample mug first. For this service - should we accept it - we'll charge a nominal fee of $10.00 per image and only upon special, written request by the customer as we always use any customer-submitted digital image file AS IS.)
Hi Want to order a travel mug with children's artwork for a teacher.  What size paper should I have children draw on?  You say bright colors reproduce best on the travel mugs, which colors specifically are best?  Is thin marker best to use?  Would a photograph reproduce on the travel mug better or worse than a drawing?  How large is the area on the mug that will have the drawing? Are the base and handle always black or do you offer other colors? THANKS	Please permit us to answer your questions in the order you offered them: The size of the paper used in the creation of the original artwork is not important. What is important, however, is the proper relationship of width and height, as there are certain size limitations to what we can print on our mugs. The dimensions are determined by the type of mug decoration you're looking for. You yourself can determine the most appropriate colors to use for our stainless-steel travel mugs. Just draw on some aluminum foil or a similar background that simulates a stainless-steel surface, and you'll see that some colors show up brighter than others. Or, better still draw directly on some stainless-steel coffee mug to see the results. Thin lines will show up thin and hardly noticeable, while broad lines show up more prominently. When considering photographs with which to decorate our stainless-steel mugs, it is best to remember that we cannot print the color "white" and that all "white" spots will become the color of the stainless-steel mug. Since there is no color "white" so to speak, from which all colors can reflect off, all colors will become more "subdued" than if they would be reflected off of a white surface, such as our All dimensions that can be accommodated by your various mugs are indicated elsewhere in this web site. For stainless-steel mugs the max. we can decorate is 2-¾" x 7-¾ The base and handle of our stainless-steel mugs are as shown and are always black. For details on how to create digital image files that are suitable for being reproduced on our various mugs, please consult our ARTS section as well as our searchable FAQ sections,  where you'll also find information on how to best convert "paper artwork" into useable, digital image files. You can also use our site search engine to find most pages of this web site. Please feel free to explore and consult any or all of the following links for further details: Printable area Tips and suggestions Image scanning Dimensions Sizes Requirements Resolutions FAQ section FTP server for file uploading Stainless Steel Travel Mugs As always, we decorate all our mugs with customer-supplied digital image files AS IS.
Hi, I am kind of confused about what is the best way to create a personalized mug.  I think it would be easier for me to design the mug itself but since you guys already said i cant use any doc. files, i was wondering what types of programs it would be best for me to create the mug layout in.  I also am not sure if you are actually going to use the file I send as templates of it i just gave you an accurate picture of what i want, if you could then create a layout based on that.  If you can tell me the best way about formatting my own layout I can get started as this mug is intended as a gift and I need to get cracking on it. thanks again,	When you create your own mug decoration/design, two different file formats can be used and have to be considered based on the "contents" of your mug decoration. You can either use a: 1.) Raster/bitmap file format; or a 2.) Vector file format The first format is used primarily for photographs where continuous tones are of the essence; and the 2nd, the vector format, is used for spot color designs, such as logos, text and lettering. The raster/bitmap format is resolution dependent and hence when you create your digital design make sure that  your resolution is at least 300 dpi's and in the final dimensions, or larger. (This will create a very large file, indeed.) The vector format is resolution independent and hence it's size can be changed without affecting the resolution. Should you include raster images within your vector file, then the size of the design cannot be changed without a corresponding change to the bitmap contents. (For the maximum dimensions we can use on our different mugs, please see here.) Please remember that we cannot use nor open any files in the .doc format. We suggest the use of "pure" graphics applications for the creation of digital image files for the use on our full-color, custom-decorated, ceramic coffee mugs. Since we always use customer-submitted digital files AS IS, we suggest that you use the guidelines, tips and suggestions offered in this web site as a starting point. You can even consult our searchable FAQ pages for very detailed information. You can also submit your ideas in writing and we'll then try to create (when possible) a digital image  for your evaluation. Please consider that we will have to charge a nominal fee of $35.00/hour for any and all artwork we create on our customer's behalf. If the first design we develop for you should not be acceptable, we'll modify it based on your observations, again for the above mentioned fee.

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