Art Preparation for Duke University Press Journals

I. Authors are responsible for providing camera-ready (defined below) copies of all artwork to appear with their articles, written documentation of permission to reprint the artwork (if it is not their original work), and all captions to accompany the artwork. The editor is responsible for making sure authors meet these responsibilities. Authors are responsible for any acquisition fees, permission fees, and extraordinary production costs for their contributions. If artwork is to be redone, the editor should consider having all the drawings in the issue done by one artist so that the final issue will not have figures of varying style and type-size.

II. Any artwork submitted can be returned to the contributor once printing of the issue is complete. When the artwork is submitted, please specify whether it is to be returned, and provide a complete street address for return that will be valid at the time the issue is estimated to be printed.

III. All captions will be set by the typesetter of the journal. Text must be provided, but does not need to be included as part of the artwork.

IV. Illustrations will be produced only in black and shades of gray. No multicolor illustrations can be accommodated.

V. The illustration, after reduction, must fit within the same area as a normal page of text, but need not occupy the full area. Some journals, but not all, allow for artwork to run turn-page, or sideways. The available area varies from journal to journal. If you need specific measurements for your journal, please contact journals production.

VI. The journal will be produced by offset lithography, so all techniques and procedures common to this method of printing should be kept in mind by the artist who is preparing any material for reproduction purposes.

VII. Artwork submitted for covers may have special requirements. Please contact production concerning needs for cover art for your journal.

VIII. There are four general categories of artwork: line art (including charts, graphs, and diagrams), photographs, art supplied as a negative, and art supplied on disk.


Categories of Artwork


Line art

1. Line art should be prepared with sharp, well-defined line of black ink or type on white board or high-quality paper. Glossy paper similar to photography paper is preferred. If artwork is printed from a computer, a laser printer must be used. Artwork printed on a dot-matrix printer is not acceptable. If the artist traces from a piece of base art, the finished illustration should arrive prepared on a suitable sheet of matte finish acetate. This type of acetate will take pen or brush work very well. Photocopies are not acceptable.

2. Line art can be prepared oversized as long as any type used will appear as approximately 9 or 10 point when the illustration is reduced to the final size. The type must be legible; its edges must be clear and letters must not overlap or touch. It should not be so small that it is hard to read, nor so large that it appears overwhelming on the printed page. A reduced-size photocopy can give the author and editor an idea of how the image will appear at its final printed size.

3. It is best to use the established text face and size whenever possible. Otherwise, a sans serif type face is preferred. If you do not know the text face of your journal, please contact journals production.

4. Patterns such as dots and crosshatching may be used as long as they are not so complicated that they become confusing to the eye. Only relatively coarse benday screens should be used. The coarseness depends on how much the art will be reduced. Very dark or dense patterns may appear as solid black after reduction. Faint lines in the illustration—especially dotted lines—may disappear after reduction.


Photographs

1. Permission for reproduction must be supplied when the art is submitted to the press. Production can not proceed if there is a chance of copyright infringement.

2. Please be sure that an original glossy photograph is sent to the Press. Photocopies of the art are not acceptable. Occasionally, laser copies of photographs can be used as originals, but they provide very poor-quality results. Photographs that have already been reproduced as halftones (in books or magazines) will not reproduce as well as originals with no halftone patterning.

3. If the reprint permission allows, authors or editors may indicate custom cropping for photographs, either by giving a detailed description of the desired cropping, or by marking the desired cropping on a copy of the photograph.


Art supplied as a negative

1. Negatives must be the correct size and meet all the requirements for line art mentioned above.

2. Authors should provide a contact print so that a placement guide can be prepared for the printer.


Art supplied on disk

1. Graphs, charts, or figures may be submitted in the following formats, along with a laser printout: Pagemaker 5.0 or higher, QuarkXPress 3.3 or higher, Microsoft Excel 4.0 or higher, Adobe Illustrator 5.5, Aldus Freehand 3.11, EPS files (with fonts supplied), Postscript files (with fonts embedded), or TIFF files.

2. Art embedded in word-processing programs needs to have the original program files included on disk. Duke Press can process Word Perfect and Microsoft Word embedded graphics.

3. If any specific fonts are required for the artwork, the fonts and font suitcases must be included. Otherwise, Duke Press will substitute the established text face.

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updated 10/7/05