Artwork

Printing

All commercial playfields are direct printed using ink. Some users opt to print on vinyl or mylar with adhesive, then overlay it on the playfield. Either the insert locations are trimmed away, or it's printed clear with the insert artwork already included. Printing white on clear media is sometimes a challenge.

Playfield

Graphics are often outlined heavy so they show up.

Cabinet

While there have been a few odd cabinet shapes and widths (gottlieb did some funky backboxes, Atari had some super wide-bodies), most custom projects use the standard and widebody from Williams. The backbox of a williams typically has a deeper top and narrow bottom to match the angle of the lower cabinet so it sits flush and flat when folded. Stern has done a similar design for years, but has recently switched to a square backbox with T-molding, as well as a new tilted DMD bezel that is tilted back to minimize reflection on the glass.

Typically the cabinet will have the name of the machine, often as a logo. Sometimes the art is printed with a plain background, sometimes the entire cabinet is filled with art. Like playfields, the cabinet can be direct printing or decaled . Stern has been doing decals for many years now because they can get brighter printing colors that pop compared to direct print.

Graphics

Numeric / Alphanumeric

Numeric and Alphanumeric are sometimes chosen even today because of the ease of programming. Creating dots for DMD animation can take a lot of time.