For this example I’ll be using our printed double-sided cassette J-cards. You’ll notice on the product page there’s a button that says ‘Add Your Design’. Click on it!

This opens the online designer. You’ll notice the template is already in place, with the panel lines in black, text safe area in green, and the bleed line in red. If you have a colour background or you want the image to hit the very edge of the J-card, it must surpass the red bleed lines.

You’ll also notice icons on the top and sidebar. These are your tools for designing your artwork. You can hover over them for more information. There’s also some pre-made images and backgrounds available.

However, I have images I’d like to use, so I’m going to hit the Upload button on the left and select the images from my local drive. You can also link your Facebook or Instagram account.

I selected the my photo of a fiery summer sunset and dragged it into the template, resizing and reconfiguring as I saw fit. Note that I made sure to extend the image past the red bleed lines, ensuring there will be no white slivers or hairlines when printing.

I want the second panel to be a solid colour as to make my text more legible. What I did here was click on the ‘object’ button on the top sidebar, and then selected ‘rectangle’. By highlighting the area of the second panel as indicated by the black fold lines, I am able to add a solid colour shape.

From here I can use the ‘arrow’ icon to click on my rectangle, which will open more options. I select the ‘color’ icon to then change the rectangle to black.

Now I add the title using the ‘text’ icon! There’s a lot of customizations to the text available, including font, colour, stroke, transform, and rotation. That said, I highly suggest poking around the design module, it’s quite powerful and allows for a lot of funky effects!

So now we’re done with the front/outside cover. Because the printed J-cards include double-sided print, we can start working on the back/inside artwork. At the very bottom you’ll see two rectangular icons, click on the second icon to start working on the back cover.

I’m going to keep it simple and use a picture I took of the moon, giving the artwork some balance and coherence. My artwork is ready to submit.

But before you do that, hit the ‘Download’ button and download the artwork as a PDF! That way you have a copy for your records, you never know when you may want to use these files again. After downloading and double-checking your work, hit the ‘Submit’ button.

You’ll be returned to the product page from where you started. Give your J-card order a Project Title, adjust the quantity and click ‘Add to Cart’.

After you go through the checkout and payment process, you’ll have one final step: approve the artwork. This gives you one last chance to look over your work and make sure there are no mistakes! Once you’re confident with your masterpiece, hit ‘APPROVE NOW’, and we’ll start the presses.

We have our online designer set up and ready to go on dozens of printed products, including but not limited to cassette j-cards, cassette labels, CD cardboard sleeves, and vinyl labels. Is there a product you’d like to see added to our online designer? Send us a shout and let us know!