In this post, I’m going to share the key things you need to do when creating professional-level illustrations for art licensing. You’ll learn how to ensure your art files are high-resolution enough to be printed on products, whether your art should be raster or vector, and other top tips for making sure your digital art files are setting you up for art licensing success!

Why It’s Important To Create High-quality Art Files

First, why do you need to create high quality art files?

More Sales Opportunities

It only takes a few seconds to make a first impression and you want to make it count! If you want to put your art on products– it’s important that the artwork is as professional looking as possible.You want your potential clients and customers to be impressed by the quality of your designs right off the bat. Simply put, higher quality = more sales!

Flexibility in Sizing

If you work with rasterized art files like me, you can’t scale up a small file without losing quality. Since you never know what kinds of products your artwork might end up on, it’s important to create your files with the idea that your artwork might be printed on large products like wall hangings, shower curtains, bedding, wallpaper, and more.

You want to work with large, high-quality artwork files so that you have more flexibility in the size of products your art can be printed on.

It’s Required by Licensing Partners

Licensing partners have images to protect and standards to uphold, so they require artists to provide high-quality illustration files. They want to make sure that whatever they’re putting on their products is clean and professional so that it will appeal to their customers. So if you want to be considered for licensing, you need to meet that standard.

Building Rapport with Licensing Partners

Remember what I said about first impressions? Well, when you create high-quality illustrations it builds rapport with art licensing partners, and they will want to work with you again knowing that they can count on you to create high-quality artwork.

Creating professional-level illustrations is one of the many things to consider when embarking on your art licensing career. If you want to learn more of my top industry tips, check out my Creative Business Bundle which is chock-full of business tips for artists including art licensing email templates, marketing tips, trend research, and so much more! Download it for free here.

Now, let’s dive in and learn the key things to consider when creating professional-level illustrations for art licensing!

High Resolution

You want to make sure that your files are high-resolution. High resolution files are great for printing on all sorts of surfaces and sizes.

The best way to ensure your file is high-res enough for art licensing is to set the DPI (dots per inch). DPI is basically how many little digital particles make up your image. The higher the DPI, the higher the file quality. 300 DPI is the industry standard, but you can set it higher if you’d like. Just know that will create a pretty massive file!

If you’re working on a design digitally, you can set the DPI when you set your canvas size. Tools like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator usually allow you to adjust this upon creating a new file. If you are creating your artwork with Procreate, you can adjust the DPI by tapping on the wrench icon, then tapping “Crop and Resize” under Canvas. You will see the “Settings” option where you can adjust the size of your canvas.

You are also able to adjust the DPI on your scanner settings for any of your artwork that you’ve created with traditional media. The higher the resolution (DPI) of your original scan, the larger you will be able to print your artwork.

Keep in mind that the industry standard for printing on paper is 300 DPI but, again, the higher the DPI the bigger you can print your design. If you scan or create art at 900 DPI, it means that you can scale the design up to three times its original size, 1200 DPI up to four times the original size, and so on.You can learn more about DPI and turning your analog artwork into digital art in this blog post.

Color Profile (RGB)

Color profiles define how your colors are represented on different forms of devices and media. A color profile contains the color characteristics of a device,like a monitor, scanner, printer, or camera.

The required color profile for artworks may vary depending on the printer or supplier but most print-on-demand site and licensing partners require RGB, so that’s exactly what I set my color profile as! But make sure to do your research create your artwork in the correct color profile for the licensing partners you want to work with.

Layered Artwork

Organizing your layers while creating your design not only helps you manage the elements of your design but it can also come in handy when you’re working with a licensing partner.

Your licensing partners may want to isolate certain parts of your artwork to use in other products in the collection. Creating layered artwork ensures that your art is as easy to manipulate as possible. You simply need to send your licensing partners artwork that is broken down into layers.

Non-vector artwork is OK!

Vector is a form of art with scalable shapes and solid colors (think Adobe Illustrator). Vector art offers incredible flexibility when it comes to sizing since it doesn’t lose quality when you resize it. On the other hand, raster artwork (think Adobe Photoshop or Procreate) is great for projects that involve complex color blends and a more traditional art feel.

There is a misconception that vectors are required when you want to create professional artwork for licensing, but I’m here to tell you that’s not the case at all!

I almost exclusively send rasterized artwork to my licensing partners and this has never been a problem. You just need to make sure that your files are large enough that they can be scaled up on large products without losing quality.

Larger artwork gives you more opportunities

You don’t want to miss out on the opportunity to be able to put your art on all sorts of products. Larger artworks give you flexibility! You can always scale artwork down for small products, but by creating a large file you open yourself up to more product possibilities.

For instance, you can’t scale a sticker-sized file up to the size of bedding. But you can scale a bedding-sized file down to the size of a sticker.

To recap, professional-level illustrations give you flexibility and more opportunities when it comes to working with licensing partners and POD platforms. Understanding the importance of high-quality files, color profiles, and layered artwork gives you an edge in the industry. And creating these high-quality files increases your licensing opportunities.

If you want to learn more about licensing your artwork with big brands, you can read about my journey along with some useful tips in this blog post.

How to Create Professional-Level Illustrations for Art Licensing