We can accept your photos and figures in most any state of completion as long as we can edit, apply styles, and retain necessary resolution when we size them to fit into your article.

But we also are grateful when an author or designer sends us graphics that do not need very much work! Here are the general guidelines. For further information, please contact BPI’s senior technical editor, Cheryl Scott, at cheryl.scott@informa.com. For custom projects, such as sponsored Special Reports, please review this Addenda to the guidelines.

BPI Fonts
BPI uses Proxima Nova (Condensed) and Unit Slab (Pro) font families in editorial text. Article figures are built using Unit Slab Pro fonts almost exclusively, sized at 9-pt bold for labels and the rest at 8-pt regular. We will probably need to resize and format your graphics to house style — but you can help us by making sure that the text is editable. If that’s not possible, then try not to have text overlapping with graphic elements (especially gradients); that will allow us to strip it away and retype using our own formats.

Submitting Photos
Articles: Every article needs an illustration to liven up its first page. These are provided by authors or sourced from stock photo collections. If your article is quite long and contains a number of figures and other graphics, then we may use your first graphic (if appropriate) in place of an opening photo.

Format of Photos within Articles
300 dpi at the print size:

• one column wide = ~2.5”
• two columns wide = ~5.0”
• three columns wide = ~7.5”
• half-page width (least preferred) = ~4.0”

Cover Images: We are always eager to receive potential cover images. Although we do not pay for their use, we will print a thumbnail version in our table of contents with the caption that you send us and with full attribution. We will not reuse your image separately without additional permissions, but pdfs of our entire covers (containing both your image and our logo and blurbs) may appear on marketing materials throughout the life of BPI. Any unauthorized use of your image alone will be brought to our attention, however, so that we can ensure its removal from that other publication.

Cover Image Photos

• 300 dpi at print size: 8.5” wide, about 6” high (horizontal orientation)
• These need to be free of obvious company names or logos (unless for a sponsored issue, of course). If we editors can easily remove them, then that is a possibility.
• Please ensure the image is correct in the file format you provide it (PDF, JPG, TIFF, etc.). We have actually seen images come in upside-down!

Figures
Although we editors can make almost any graphic element work, there are limitations specific to resolution and readability, especially in a print publication.

General Figure specs are the same as those for photos:
   300 dpi at the print size:

• one column wide = ~2.25”
• two columns wide = ~4.33”
• three columns wide = ~ 7″
• half-page width (least preferred) = ~3.5″

Preferred: Editable files (e.g., Adobe Illustrator, EPS, some PDFs, graphs made directly in Word or PowerPoint) with individual elements that can be styled and/or copyedited as needed.

Workable: Flattened files (e.g., TIF, JPG, some PDFs, figures imported into Word or PowerPoint) for which we will have to strip of their text using Photoshop and then retype the text in Adobe Illustrator. This takes longer, but it is something we do quite often.

Problematic: Flattened files with text overlapping the graphic elements, especially if those elements have color gradients or complex details, etc. These can even make some files unusable for print.

Captions: Although it sometimes cannot be avoided, try to write your captions as economically as possible, placing as much explanatory information about a figure or table in your text rather than in the caption. Aim not to include information in a caption that is already in your text. Your editor will, of course, suggest alternatives if necessary.

Seeking Permission to Reuse Graphic Materials from Another Publication: If you need permission from another author or publisher to use any previously published photo, table, or figure, we will need that permission clearly provided from you at the point of your article’s submission. A copy of an email, however, from an original author or publisher, will suffice for our files. We will attribute and credit any original source, but we must depend on you for the wording. If we do not have that permission from you on file by the time we need to create the lineup for an upcoming issue, we may have to postpone publication or proceed without that particular graphic.

Other Possibilities
We are always on the lookout for potential wall-chart imagery and miscellaneous infographics, especially for digital use. Such projects are also excellent sponsorship opportunities for your company. These are hybrid editorial and marketing projects — so if you have such a project in mind, please contact any one of the editors or your BPI marketing contact.