gift mugs make great mug gifts

Custom Sublimation Decorated Ceramic Coffee Gift Mugs
The Coffee Mug Lovers Paradise - Frequently Asked Questions

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1	How do I go about getting my own design and text on a ceramic coffee mug?
2	Where can I find appropriate designs and slogans for my coffee mug?
3	What makes decorations  different from other mugs?
4	How do I order?
5	What is the difference between sublimation-decorated Gift Mugs and traditional ceramic decal decorations?
6	How long does it take to receive my custom decorated Gift Mugs?
7	I have heard that there are some color shifts on decorated ceramic products. Can you explain?
8	How do I prepare my digital art for easy e-mailing?
9	My graphics program does not tell me the resolution of my images. What can I do to make sure my artwork has a resolution of 300 dpi's?
10	Are there any size restrictions concerning the personalization of the mugs?

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1.) How do I go about getting my own design and text on a ceramic coffee mug?

The first step is to determine what decoration or text you would like to have on your mug. You might only have a very general idea but we will help you in transforming your preferences into a decoration that corresponds with your ideas. Just e-mail us your ideas and this form and we'll try to transform them into a design you can evaluate.

We'll e-mail you a design proposal for your comments and suggestions on how to refine them according to your ideas. You let us know if you like the design and/or what needs to be changed.

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2.) Where can I find appropriate designs and slogans for my coffee mug?

Should you see something that is to your liking on the Internet, for example, just let us know where you found it and we too will take a look at it. Remember, before "copying" anything from the Internet you'll have to get permission from the copyright owner. But to get a general idea of what you would like to have on your mug, this is perfect.

Other good sources for designs and slogans are the daily press, magazines, movies, TV-shows and similar media where up-to-date information is available. Your friends and office associates are also very good sources of ideas and of what is "in" at the moment..

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3.) What makes decorations  different from other mugs?

Our mug decorations are different from mugs offered by other companies in that we create each mug design according to your needs and wishes.

Each mug is decorated from "scratch" in that we do not have any decorated mugs in stock nor do we carry a catalog.  All our mugs are only decorated once you have accepted and returned to us our order confirmation.

Thus the designs are fresh and custom made to your needs  - -  the mug decorations express your feelings and not those of us or others.

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4.) How do I order ?

It is very easy to order your custom decorated ceramic coffee mugs:

 Just go to our secure on-line order/payment page and enter the necessary information into it. Should you need assistance in sending us your own art and text files, you can get help here.

You can pay with your Discover, American Express, MasterCard or Visa credit card  or by  check and Money Order. You can even pay with the very popular PayPal Internet Payment service that is most often used on e-Bay and similar web sites.

If you do not want to send your credit card information over our secure on-line order/payment form, then just fill the credit card fields with "zeros" as otherwise the form will not process. 

You can then call-in your credit card information over our toll free Internet Phone number which you can find here or any other phone to: 321-253-0012.

Either way we'll not charge your credit card or deposit your check or Money Order until you accept our Order Confirmation which we'll send you shortly after we receive our on-line order/payment form from you.

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5.) What is the difference between sublimation-decorated Gift Mugs and traditional ceramic decal decorations?

For ages there has been only one way to decorate ceramic coffee mugs: with vitrifiable, ceramic decals or by hand painting directly on the mugs.

In the age of computers, there emerged another alternative: sublimation printing. Both methods still use the principles of  "transfers" in that the design is printed on paper and then transferred onto the coffee mug and fixed onto it with heat and pressure.

Sublimation-decorated coffee mugs can be produced efficiently for short production runs and in FULL COLOR, as all colors are imprinted onto the "transfer" paper in one printing process. 

With ceramic decals each and every color has to be printed individually and in sequence, mostly with screen printing. A different printing screen or plate has to be made for each color and each color has to be registered on top of the one below until all colors are printed. This is a rather expensive undertaking if only a few decorations are required but is more efficient for large printings of the same decoration. Of course, FULL COLOR mug decorations are hardly possible with the screen-printing process even today.

We here at used to produce ceramic decorations with both methods. In fact, we started decorating ceramic wares with ceramic decals back in 1983 and have been producing ceramic decorations ever since, but today we use the sublimation process exclusively.

More on Sublimation

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6.) How long does it take to receive my custom decorated Gift Mugs?

After we receive back your "signed" approval of our Order Confirmation and payment of your coffee mug order, it can take us up to 3-6 business days  [and more during holiday seasons]  to ship your custom decorated coffee mugs order (for our standard, white coffee mugs). 
We ship larger mug orders in double cartons back-filled with "peanuts" and/or Styrofoam to assure safe arrival of your mugs. 

For smaller orders, each mug is individually wrapped within plastic air bubble bags and/or within our neutral, white gift boxes to withstand the rough-and-tumble of the shipping process ...and yet sometimes mugs arrive broken. 
This is why it never hurts to also insure the shipment, of your mugs...just in case.

Please note that we do not guarantee timely arrival at destination, only timely shipment from our facilities in Melbourne, Florida, USA.

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7.) I have heard that there are some color shifts on decorated ceramic products. Can you explain?

Printing color designs onto mediums such as glass, ceramic, porcelain or fabrics, can be a daunting and quite difficult task as opposed to just printing on plain paper or other paper-based products.
This is why we cannot guarantee that the reproduction of your art will be reproduced exactly in the colors you specify or indicate in your art. We want you, our customer, to be aware of this as we can make no claims of being "color perfect". 

While we've done our best to represent colors and textures accurately, the color calibration and quality of computer monitors can vary considerably. We'll, however, do our best to reproduce your art to the best of our knowledge. Based on this, we cannot guarantee faithful color reproductions and color shifts have to be considered an integral part of the ceramic mug decoration process.

The colors you see in your monitor or on a printed page might not always be exactly the same as they'll appear on the finished mugs. It is for this reason that we highly recommend that you order a sample mug first when color rendition is important. When you order a sample mug, we'll charge you our one-mug price and then discount this price down to the per mug price of the order.  S&H charges are not refundable nor discountable, however.  You can read more on this subject here.

Please remember:
To preserve the beauty and vibrancy of the image on your sublimation mugs, it is best to hand wash them. Also, never leave the mugs in direct sunlight, for example on a window sill.

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8.) How do I prepare my digital art for easy e-mailing?

The answer is right here.

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9.) My graphics program does not tell me the resolution of my images. What can I do to make sure my artwork has a resolution of 300 dpi's?

Should your graphics application be optimized for Internet graphic artworks and you cannot change nor determine the resolution of your artwork - which is generally fixed with that kind of programs to either 72 dpi's or 96 dpi's - you might then try this approach to obtaining higher resolution digital artworks. The dimensions as well as your file size will increase dramatically but we'll transform this "big file" to obtain the right dimensions and a resolution suitable for mug decorations. 

Please note that this approach will only work properly with artwork you're creating yourself as an original in your graphics application. It will not work with art that you have already downloaded from the Internet, for example. It should be pointed out that you have to increase the dimensions of your digital "canvas"  before you start creating your digital artwork (also see here) as indicated in the following:

If your finished artwork has to have the finished mug dimensions of 3" x 3" for example, and your graphics application generates all art files with a resolution of only 72 ppi's, that would result in an image of 216 pixels x 216 pixels in size (3" x 3" at 72 ppi's) for a total Pixel Dimension of 137K.

If you need to obtain a final resolution for your 3" x 3" artwork of, for example 360 ppi's (72 ppi's x 5), then you'd create your art in the dimensions of 15" x 15" (3" x 5), or 1,080 x 1,080 pixels at 72 ppi's (216 pixels x 5). 
In other words, your "digital canvas" will have these dimensions: 
15" X 15" at 72 ppi's -  which is the same as 3" x 3" at a resolution of 360 ppi's.
and will indicate this somewhere in your graphics application. The total Pixel Dimension will be 3.34M in both cases.
 Formula to determine the file size of your digital image.

Since the resulting files will be very large, you might not be able to attach them to an e-mail and might have to consider some other ways to send them to us, as suggested here.

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10.) Are there any size restrictions concerning the personalization of the mugs?

There are no restrictions as to number of characters, color of fonts, style of fonts and size of fonts nor placement of characters as long as they all fit into the available space to be decorated (3" x 3" for a normal decoration, wrap-around and handle-to-handle decorations can be wider in size). The personalization can be on a "blank" side (not decorated side of the mug) or below/above a decoration or logo as long as all fits in the available space.

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Should you have any questions you believe should be incorporated into this 
Frequently Asked Questions  
page, please let us know and we'll add it to this list. 
Thank you for your cooperation.