Custom Raised UV Files Part 1

Have you tried adding Raised UV as a print embellishment on your business cards or presentation folders? Using a template downloaded from our website and Adobe Illustrator, you can make impressive, custom Raised UV designs in under 15 minutes! Raised UV gives print elements a tangible lift off the page and shine. Raised UV is a great marketing tool as it highlights design elements on printed products as well as adding a memorable tactile effect. Feel free to learn more about the benefits of Raised UV here. This tutorial is the first in a series of tutorials we are creating to showcase different ways of designing print-ready Raised UV files in Illustrator. These instructions use Adobe Illustrator’s pen tool to create custom outlines around shapes in an image. To look through some Raised UV Folder images, feel free to visit the Presentation Folder Inc. website here. To order free Raised UV samples, visit this link.

You can follow along our step-by-step breakdown of designing Print ready Raised UV Pocket Folder Designs below. Feel free to watch our tutorial video if you would like to follow along visually.

Visit the Presentation Folder website

1. Go to https://presentationfolder.com/ to download a template for your Raised UV file. In our tutorial, we will be designing a Raised UV file for a presentation folder.

2. On the website’s menu, head to the “Resources” tab on the right-hand side and click the arrow to drop down all the options. Choose: Templates, then, Raised UV Textures.

This is a screenshot of presentationfolder.com's webpage showing navigation from the Resources tab to the Raised UV Textures templates. Clicking the Raised UV Textures Button leads you to the Templates page.

3. Choose a texture template to start (The Parquet Texture is used in the tutorial) by clicking: Download Template, underneath the Parquet Texture option.

Download the Pocket Folder Template

This is a screenshot of 3 distinct Raised UV Folders with buttons underneath to download the templates pertaining to the texture.
Free, easy to download Raised UV texture templates for pocket folders.

4. Your download will open in a new window, but be sure to save to your desktop or wherever you will be accessing your project files.

Open the Raised UV Template in Illustrator

5. Once you have saved the template, reopen in Adobe Illustrator.

6. Review your template by going to the right-hand bar, Layers, tab. You will see one of the layers is a magenta folder titled “Raised UV.” The magenta layer helps keep all Raised UV elements organized, visually distinguishes between the Raised UV portions of the artwork. When the file goes to print, the machine will identify the layers and print accordingly.

The layers section of the template in Adobe Illustrator
CMYK and Raised UV Layer separations

7. You can remove the parquet texture from your template, start from scratch and add your own raised UV design elements. (For purposes of this tutorial, we go ahead and delete the texture to create our design)

The pocket folder Raised UV template opened in Adobe Illustrator
Illustrator File with the Raised UV texture removed

Add your CMYK Artwork

8. Import your artwork elements to your template. In this tutorial, we use our “Soda Bottle” folder artwork.

A CMYK Artwork File for a pocket folder. Orange Background with text that reads "The Fancy Soda Co." on the back of the folder and the "The Fancy Soda CO." and "Best Soda in Town!" on the front. The front of the folder also features an image of soda bottles in an ice chest.

9. Before you begin on marking the artwork, be sure to have the “Raised UV” Layer folder clicked on the right-hand side, while you work. You will be creating new layers under the “Raised UV” Layer folder as you design.

A closeup of the image featuring soda bottles in an ice chest. There is a green, orange, and blue soda bottle surrounded by ice cubes with visible condensation.
In this tutorial, we will be tracing the large soda bottle shapes

Trace a large shape in your image

10. As you will see in the tutorial, we use the PEN TOOL (left click to lay down points) to outline (no fill) the soda bottles’ contours. Every time you click down, you add a new anchor point to your layer, connecting each line and point you create. The more anchor points, the more details you can get. The editing process involves deleting or adding anchor points, depending on how precise you are. You want the lines to be as tight and clean as possible to create a full vector.

A screenshot of the icons for Adobe Illustrator's pen tool.
Illustrator’s Pen Tool

Fill in your Raised UV shape to make it a solid

11. Once you have created your shape, reverse the stroke’s color, so we have a white fill, then switch to magenta under your layer, and you have your first raised UV layer. (In the tutorial we repeat step 10 on all three soda bottles)

A screenshot of a CMYK + Raised UV artwork file. The file is the same as the CMYK artwork file, just featuring solid shapes covering the soda bottles with the color Magenta.

12. Once you have all of your shapes completed, check to be sure they are all appropriately stored in the magenta raised UV folder. Toggle the eye icon on/off, to make sure they are all linked.

Save your file

13. SAVE YOUR FILE. We accept many file forms, see here. We suggest either an Adobe Illustrator (AI) or a print-ready PDF file. Visit our site to learn more! https://presentationfolder.com/

And you are done! You will now have a Raised UV artwork file that is completely custom to your company’s image and branding. Stay tuned for our next Raised UV tutorial using Illustrator’s Image Trace function for fine-detail, textural Raised UV designs.

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