How to design a beermat

Because different manufacturers may have variations, it is always worth checking first, but as a general guide the following would apply to designing a beermat.

Most beermats are printed square with rounded corners or less commonly, are round. Beermats are normally 94mm square or 94mm diameter. However, the beermats have to be printed and cut, therefore it is not acceptable to simply provide artwork which is 94mm. The following guidelines relate to a ‘square’ beermats with rounded corners, but the general principles would apply equally to a 94mm diameter beermat.

Artwork should be provided 100mm x 100mm. This allows for a 4mm guide, the cut edge and a bleed area. Edge borders should be a minimum of 7mm (4mm plus bleed). The beermat itself is 94mm x 94mm and the corner radius is 6.35mm. Because of the absorbent nature of genuine beermat board, the design process must always be treated differently to normal paper stock. For example, fonts must be a minimum of 7 point and for ‘reversed out’ text, a minimum of 9 point. Gold, silver and florescent’s are not accepted colours, although they can normally be provided as a ‘spot colour’ but this can add considerably to any price quoted.

Although beermats are typically litho-printed using the industry standard CMYK, because the board is manufactured using a particularly absorbent substrate, colour variances are inevitable, therefore if anyone has a particular pantone in mind for their company logo, they should stick with coated paper!

Most beermat manufacturers now insist on a high resolution PDF of the design, those that do not will normally insist that the image is converted to process colours and saved at a minimum of 300 dpi. Some of the more ‘switched on’ beermat manufacturer will offer an in-house design service, more often than not, at favourable rates, so it is always worth enquiring. If you want to deal with the manufacturer direct, it is best to ask a few pertinent questions, because some company’s lay claim to be a manufacturer when they are not and others may not even be based in the country you are from…relying instead on a ‘virtual office’ address!