Gift Mugs make great coffee Mug Gifts

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• How can I eliminate the white background on my digital raster/bitmap artwork (the square block) as I do not want it to be printed. This white area should be transparent.
  
  All raster art, also known as bitmaps, have a square or rectangular delimitating field or shape around them. This "bloc" is normally white and your design "sits" within, or on top, of this white field.

  Since almost all of the time this white bloc is not to be printed, many of our customers have asked us how to eliminate this white area.

  This area should be "transparent" so to speak, that is, not to be visible nor be printed on the mug decorations. Since we decorate all of our mugs with the full-color sublimation process, we cannot print the color "white" as there are no white color pigments for digital printing on the market. (This is also why all our mugs are white-glazed and we cannot decorate any colored mugs.) Thus, you do not have to worry about this white shape in your digital artwork - it will not print, nor will any other part of your digital art file print that has white in it.

  The "white" color in your artwork will be the "white" of the mug - the mug's white color will shine through the mug decoration and you'll hardly notice that there is no white "paint" in your mug decoration. Just make sure that the "white" shape around your design is really white.

  This can easily be verified, as pure white has these values on the RGB scale:
  R255, G255 and B 255.
  And on the CMYK scale all the values are: Zero (0) for all four values.

  Please make sure that you save your raster/bitmap art file with a resolution of at least 300 dpi's in your graphic's program native file format - we prefer the .tif format for PC's - and do not save it as a .gif (nor as a .jpg file) as this will reduce your resolution to 72 dpi's for the .gif format and to 96 dpi's for .jpg files with most Web graphic programs - as these are the Internet Standards for images where you will only need to see them on your screen. These resolutions, however, are not sufficient for printing purposes and at these low resolutions your images will be rather pixelated and will show the by now famous "stair step" pattern. We offer some tips on how to overcome these problems in our Arts Section of this web site.
  
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• 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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• 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 yur 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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• 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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• What makes Gift Mugs 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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• 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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• 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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• How would I go about getting mugs made with my grandson's hand prints on them and also: I Love Mommie and I love Daddy.
  
  

  Scan your hand print (or have it scanned in stores such as Kinko's, for example) with a resolution of at least 300 dpi's AND in the final dimensions (3" x 3" for our 11-oz coffee mugs). Save the scanned image in the .tif or .jpg file format and up-load it to our servers. Thereafter we'll prepare a virtual mug layout for your evaluation and acceptance, and include any additional information you submitted with your order form

  
  
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• i have an eccentric aunt who curses a LOT! can i have an inscription reading, "Kiss my ass! I'm 60"/ No being rude. just want something that reflects her demeanor. thanks
  
  We can decorate our mugs with any text as long as it's leagal.
  
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