Stirrings: advertising

We're as good as anyone at squeezing pints into half pint glasses, but you can make life much easier for us by following the guidelines below for formatting ads for inclusion in Stirrings.

Discounts on our already surprisingly cheap rates are available for clubs. Contact us for details.

If you need us to lay out your ad for you or are not able to supply it as a print-ready digital image file or as camera-ready artwork, there will be a 30% mark-up.

Most standard (raster) digital image file formats are okay: jp[e]g (uncompressed), tif[f] and pdf are preferred. Please make sure that these are greyscale, not colour (unless your ad is intended to be printed as colour - see below); and saved at 150-300 dpi/ppi. They should also be print size; or, if larger, in proportion.

All mainstream design and DTP software nowadays can save files to one or other of the formats above, but some older proprietory formats can be problematic. For example, we cannot under any circumstances accept files in Microsoft Publisher's native format '.pub'. If this is the only software you have available, please export the result as an image file: tif, png or jpeg (uncompressed) at 150-300 dpi should all be possible; but not bmp or gif, please.

Camera-ready artwork is 'hard copy' on good-quality plain white paper or card, uncreased and unfolded. If printing from a word file or similar, please use black ink only and print at the highest resolution you can. We can't accept colour ads as hard copy, as colour matching during scanning can be problematic.

Under some circumstances we can accept Word files, though in most cases these are suitable only as layout guides. Please talk to us before sending, though; you may need to send us the fonts separately, and, if they include an embedded image, you will need to send us the original image file as well. More recent versions of Word give you the option of saving your file as a pdf: this would be perfect for our purposes.

As noted above, we are now able to carry full colour advertising in Stirrings. These ads will usually be carried on the inner front and back covers, and the outer back cover; but they can be displayed inside the magazine too. If a colour ad is intended for one of the cover spreads, please note that the bleed along the outer vertical edge will need to be at least 6mm (that's if the ad is intended to cover the whole of the page). We'll let you know which cover space is available for your ad; if they're all booked already, you'll still have the option of placing your ad elsewhere in the magazine.

Don't worry overmuch if you are advertising in several magazines (regional and/or national) and find that every single one wants slightly different dimensions. This is normal. Everybody has different design criteria, and some mags have less flexible production methods than others.

Stirrings has always prided itself on its adoption at the earliest opportunity of new technologies, so for us, fitting your (digital) copy to the physical dimensions we use for print takes no more than a few clicks of a mouse. The dimensions we specify, therefore, are what we will print. They are guidelines; but the closer you can get to those dimensions, the better. Your images may not look exactly as you intended them if we have to stretch or squeeze them vertically or horizontally in order to make them fit.

In fact, there is very little difference between the various sizes and dimensions used by most magazines. If in doubt about anything technical, please email us at adcopy@stirrings.org.uk. That is also the address for digital artwork.

If you need to provide hard copy, please send it to the editor at the address below. For initial enquiries and booking, email ads@stirrings.org.uk.

Payment for ads should be by cheque, made out to Stirrings. Please send these to the editor:

Raymond Greenoaken
Stirrings Ads
11 Ratcliffe Road
Sheffield
S11 8YA