The best personalised festival cups do two jobs: they brand the event on the day, and they get taken home afterwards. The second job is the valuable one, and good design is what makes it happen. Here is how to nail it.
We are Drinksmate. We mould and print festival cups at our factory in Stockton-on-Tees, and our studio team has set up artwork for more than ten million cups over the past three years. We see what prints beautifully and what causes a reprint, so this is the practical version.
Design for the keepsake, not just the bar
Around half of festival cups go home with attendees. That means your design is competing for shelf and cupboard space, so make it something people want to keep. A bold event name and year, a strong lockup, a line-up or a striking graphic all beat a small logo floating in white space. Think of the cup as a piece of merchandise that happens to hold a drink, and design it like a t-shirt you would actually wear.
Use the whole wrap
A pint cup gives you a generous wrap, and full colour IML lets you print all of it edge to edge with no per-colour upcharge, so a four-colour design costs the same to print as a one-colour logo. Use that. A design that wraps the full circumference reads from every angle in a crowd and looks far more premium than a single front-and-centre logo. Keep critical elements like the event name away from the seam, and leave the area around the UKCA pint line clear so the regulated marking stays legible.
Colour and contrast
Specify your brand colours as Pantone references or clear values rather than leaving them to chance, so what you approve is what you get. High contrast between artwork and background keeps the design readable across a field at dusk. If your logo includes white elements, flag them, because white has to be printed deliberately rather than assumed from the cup colour. The choice between single colour screen print and full colour IML is covered in detail on our IML printing page, and in the how to brand cups for events guide.
Supplying artwork that prints first time
Send a vector file where you can: PDF, AI or EPS. Outline your fonts or embed them, specify the colours clearly, and supply at high resolution if you only have raster artwork. A quick pre-send checklist saves most delays: are the colours specified correctly, are the fonts outlined, is everything you want on the cup actually in the file, and is white called out where it needs to print white. Most artwork hold-ups we deal with come from missing files, not technical problems. If your artwork needs work, our studio can rebuild it, and for designs from scratch we offer an expert design service.
Always approve a 3D proof
Every order includes a free 3D digital proof before production, showing exactly how the artwork wraps around the cup and sits against the pint line. Check it properly: spelling, the event year, colour, and how the design reads when the cup is held. Nothing goes to the moulds until you sign it off. This single step prevents almost every print problem, and you should never be charged for it.
Ready to design yours?
Once your artwork is ready, send it through the quote form below with your cup size and quantity. We come back inside the hour with a price, lead time and your free 3D proof. To plan the order itself, read the personalised festival cups ordering guide, or browse the personalised festival cups range to pick your cup.