Make it work at sign scale.
Upload artwork. Get vector that holds its edges at three metres and cuts to shape.
What are you making?
Clean editable SVG at any scale.
3 free previews left · no signup to try
Real vector craft — see for yourself
Your trace lands as genuine, editable SVG paths — the same clean vector work behind Clearly’s bee-ecosystem murals. Infinitely scalable, every path editable, ready for Cricut, print or the web. No embedded pixels, no tangled auto-trace mess.
Hand-authored on the Clearly canvas · editable SVG, not raster.
The cut line is a spot colour with a specific name, not a layer you label
Large-format RIP software finds the contour cut path by looking for a spot colour named exactly `CutContour` — set to overprint, usually 0% tint so it never prints. Not a layer called "cut", not a magenta stroke, not a note in the email. Get the name wrong and the RIP prints your cut line as a visible coloured outline around the finished sign, which is the sort of mistake you discover on the finished sign. It is a five-second fix and an expensive omission, and it is the single thing sign shops most often send artwork back for.
What a large-format printer needs from the file
- Cut path
- Spot colour named exactly `CutContour`, overprint on, 0% tint.
- Bleed
- ≈3 mm trimmed; more for wrapped or mounted substrates.
- Text height
- ≈25 mm of cap height per 10 m of viewing distance.
- Minimum stroke
- Set by viewing distance, not by the file. Hairlines vanish outdoors.
- Why vector
- A sign is metres wide. Raster at that scale is unusable at any DPI.
- Colour
- Spot/Pantone for brand-critical colour; large flat areas show drift most.
How it works
A logo or design at any size — vector output scales to the finished sign.
Add the outline you want cut as a spot colour named CutContour, overprint, 0% tint.
Extend the artwork past the trim, then view at 10% zoom as a proxy for standing back.
Free watermarked preview. $10 unlocks the clean, exclusive commercial file — emailed, no account, no subscription.
FAQ
Because the RIP did not recognise it as a cut path, so it treated it as artwork. The path has to be a spot colour named exactly CutContour with overprint enabled — the name is what the software matches on, and it is case- and spelling-sensitive.
A working rule is about 25 mm of capital height for every 10 metres of viewing distance. A sign read from across a car park needs far larger type than the same design looks like it needs on a monitor.
For photographic content, yes — large-format printing tolerates surprisingly low DPI because viewing distance is large. For logos, type and hard edges, vector is what keeps them crisp at any size.
Around 3 mm for a trimmed flat sign, and more where material wraps an edge or is mounted into a frame. Ask the shop — it varies by substrate more than by size.