Use whichever is easiest. You can instruct the art director to put text over your image if needed. If you are making graphics in a drawing program, we prefer it if it's in Illustrator, in case we need to make any changes to it. Freehand is OK however. Avoid CorelDraw, as it's never converted properly to the Mac.
ZIP disks are preferred way to exchange graphic files at the Phoenix .
Grayscale works best for everything else. Grayscale mode at 200 dpi, or Bitmap mode at 600 dpi. Bitmap artwork will come out in black and white, grayscale comes out in photographic black and white. You may also have a scanned image in Duotone mode, which mixes black ink with a spot colour chosen by you. You may use Tritone if you want to mix black, red, and a spot colour chosen by you.