How to Design a Custom Playmat That Prints Sharp

Most custom playmats fail in the same two places: the file was too small, or something important sat too close to the edge. Neither problem shows up on your screen. Both show up on a 24 inch mat.

This guide walks through what to check before you upload, whether you play Magic: The Gathering, Lorcana, Star Wars: Unlimited or anything else. Want to skip ahead and start building? Go straight to the custom playmat, or browse the playmats with zones if you would rather pick a ready made design.

 

Start with the right file

Three things decide whether your artwork survives the print.

Resolution. Bigger is always safer. You can print a large file small, but you cannot add detail that was never there.

Format. JPG and PNG both work. PNG holds up better for artwork with sharp lines or text. If your artist gave you a layered PSD or a vector file, send that instead, it gives us the most to work with.

Orientation. Playmats are landscape. A portrait image has to be cropped or padded, and neither looks the way you pictured it. Check the shape before you fall in love with the design.

 

Why 300 DPI matters, and what happens below it

A 24 by 14 inch mat at 300 DPI needs an image of roughly 7200 by 4200 pixels.

For comparison, a phone screenshot is around 1170 pixels wide. That is about one sixth of what the print needs. On a screen it looks perfect. Stretched across two feet of fabric, the edges go soft and fine detail turns to mush.

If your file is smaller than that, send it anyway. Some images hold up better than the numbers suggest, especially illustrations with flat colours. We will tell you honestly whether yours works at full size before anything gets printed.

 

Keep important details away from the edge

Leave about half an inch of breathing room on every side.

The print shifts a fraction during cutting, so a name, a signature or a logo sitting right against the edge can end up clipped. Backgrounds are different. Let those run all the way out, that is what bleed is for. The rule is simple: backgrounds to the edge, anything you would miss stays inside.

This matters most for text. A deck name across the bottom of the mat is the single most common thing people lose to the cut.

 

Choosing a zone layout

Zones are printed straight into your design, and they are free on every mat.

Right handed layout. Graveyard and exile sit under your right hand. This is what most players want.

Left handed layout. The same layout mirrored. If you play left handed and you have ever reached across your own board all game, this is why.

No zones. A clean surface for artwork you do not want interrupted.

Your graveyard should sit under your dominant hand, because that is the pile you touch most during a turn. In a four player pod, a mirrored layout means bumping into someone else's board every time you cast something. See both layouts on the playmats with zones page.

One thing to plan for: zones sit on top of your artwork. Keep faces, focal points and anything you want visible out of the zone areas, or they end up behind a printed box.

 

What you can and cannot print

We cannot print trademarked or copyrighted work. That rules out official card art, game logos and screenshots, however much you love them.

Fan art is fine if you made it, or if the artist gave you permission. Commissioning a piece is a good route and often cheaper than people expect. Buying art from an independent creator works too, as long as the licence covers printing.

If you are not sure where your image sits, ask us before you order. We would rather answer that question early than cancel your order later.

 

We check every upload before we print

This is the part most custom mat shops skip.

Every file that comes in gets looked at by a person. If the resolution will not hold at full size, if the crop cuts something important, or if the colours will shift in print, we contact you first. Nothing goes to production until you have seen what we plan to do.

Sometimes that means we ask for a bigger file. Sometimes we suggest a small crop or a colour adjustment and wait for your approval. It slows things down by a day or two, and it is the reason our reviews mention sharpness rather than surprises.

You are not uploading into a machine. There is someone on the other end.

 

Ready to design yours

Pick your size, upload your artwork, choose a zone layout, and we handle the rest. Stitched edges, non slip base, printed locally in the US, UK and Australia with free shipping.

Design your own playmat