CSI has a complete line of mouse pads. We can provide silk screen pads (soft surface), dye sublimation pads (soft surface) and Lexan pads (hard surface).

Silk screen mouse pads are our most popular and least expensive type of mouse pad. They have the colored fabric top with one or more ink colors that you see everywhere. The minimum order is 100 pads. Silk screen pads come in eight different colors: black, royal blue, navy blue, burgundy, forest green, gray, red and white. They come in only one size: 9-1/4"x 7-3/4" x 1/4".

Silk screened mouse pads are printed using "spot colors." They cannot be printed using "four-color process" (photographic quality), with a "gradient" (blend) or with a "full bleed" (printing all the way to the edge). There must be at least 1/4" margin around the edge and 1/2" or larger usually looks better.

Hard surface (Lexan and glossy) and dye sublimation pads can be printed using either spot color or four-color process (photographic quality). They can also be printed with gradients and a full bleed. Anything that can be printed on paper can be printed on Lexan and dye sublimation mouse pads.

Hard surface and dye sublimation muse pads come in three sizes and three thicknesses:"Large" pads are 8" x 9-1/2". "Small" pads are 7-1/2" x 8". Our "Round" pads have an 8" diameter. All three sizes are available in 1/4", 1/8" and 1/16" thicknesses. Custom sizes and shapes are available. Please call. The minimum order for hard surfcae and dye sublimation mouse pads is 250 pieces.
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What is "spot color" and "four-color process" printing?

Spot color and four-color process are two different ways to print on anything - mouse pads, paper, etc. For both processes there must be a separate plate or screen (called a color separation) for each ink color to be printed. As you might expect, the more colors to be printed, the more plates are needed and the more expensive the job is.

In spot color printing the inks are mixed by the manufacturer and are applied one color to a plate. If "exact" color matching is required, exact colors can be specified using PMS (Pantone Matching System) number codes.

In four-color processing, four ink colors are mixed together on the printing press to make essentially all the colors of the rainbow. These four-colors are usually called "CYMK" for cyan (a light blue), magenta (a pinkish red), yellow and black inks.

If the job has only a few colors, spot color is an economical way to print. However, if the job has a lot of colors it can be less expensive to print using four-color process. Photographs must be printed using four-color process because of the large number of colors they have.
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What are the sizes and thicknesses of the various types of mouse pads?

Silk screened pads only come in one size: 7-3/4" x 9-1/4" x 1/4".

Lexan and dye sublimation pads come in three sizes and three thicknesses: "Large" pads are 8" x 9-1/2" . "Small" pads are 7-1/2" x 8". Our "Round" pad has an 8" diameter. All sizes are available in 1/4", 1/8" and 1/16" thicknesses.

Custom sizes and shapes in all three thicknesses are available for Lexan and dye sublimation pads. Please call.
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Some thoughts on different pad thickness. Or, why would anyone buy 1/16" thick mouse pads?

Historically, people have felt that a "thicker mouse pad is a better mouse pad." However, the only difference between a 1/4" thick mouse pad and thinner mouse pads is the thickness of the rubber backing and this has no effect on pad quality or durability. All it effects is the cost and the weight.

So why would anyone buy a 1/16" mouse pad? There are several reasons: They are less expensive to buy and much less expensive to ship.

A 1/16" pad literally weights about 25% of the weight of the same size and type
1/4" thick mouse pad. That's a 75% savings on shipping costs. This huge freight savings is particularly important to overseas customers where shipping costs are much higher than shipping within the United States.

Some users, including several of CSI's artists, actually prefer 1/16" thick mouse pads because the mouse can be run off and on the pad without having to lift it up to clear the edge of the pad. Other users think they are "neat" because 1/16" pads are still rather rare.
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How can I get my artwork to CSI?

The easiest and fastest way for most customers is to e-mail it to us as an attachment. Our e-mail address is sales@mouse-pads.com. If the file size is over 900 KB, please call us for instructions on how to access our FTP site.

You can use Federal Express or the U.S. Postal Service to send us a computer disk or a hard copy for us to scan.

A color print, in addition to a computer file, is very desirable because it tells us what colors you expect the image to have. This is especially true for "four-color process" (photographic quality) jobs. Our e-mail address and the street address are listed at the bottom of every page on this site.

You can fax us your artwork if you are only trying to convey your ideas and want us to do the design and/or set the type, redraw the logo, etc. However, a fax is too low a resolution to use as "actual" artwork. CSI has a complete art department and can assist you in your artwork implementation and/or design.

Important: Please put your full name, telephone number and fax number on any
e-mail, faxes or letters you send us. You would be amazed at how many people neglect to do this.

We get a lot of requests for information. If we need clarification on something, it is much easier for us to pick up the phone and call you while we are working on your request, rather than have to type an e-mail message and wait for an answer.

Your cooperation in providing your full name, telephone number and fax number on all correspondence will be greatly appreciated.
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What type of graphic formats do you support?

Our art department uses Macintosh computers, but we also have IBM compatibles on our network. We can accept tif, eps, Corel Draw, Freehand, Illustrator, Microsoft Publisher, Pagemaker, Photoshop, Powerpoint, QuarkEXpress, and Microsoft Word files from either platform.

Please note that Microsoft Publisher and Word cannot output "color separations" and can therefore only be used for "one ink color" jobs. Please see above discussion on spot color and four-color process printing if you do not know what a color separation is.

A 300 ppi resolution image is needed to print a mouse pad (or anything else for that matter.) This means that gif, bmp, jpg and jpeg file formats are unacceptable formats because they are "screen" graphics files and are only 72 or 96 ppi. That is not a high enough resolution to print well.
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