Banner Design Guide

Banner Design Dimensions

When setting up your digital art board to start creating your banner design, your art board dimensions should match the dimensions of your final printed banner. For example, a 48” x  48” sign should be designed on a 48” x 48” art board. We advise to remove any excess white space that is not required on the final print, as the entire art board will be printed as submitted. If your banner artwork is designed to the edge of the page, a bleed of 0.125” and crop marks are required. 

If possible, we recommend working on the design at the actual size of your banner. If you work at a scale less than 100%, we will have to enlarge your banner design to match the desired print size. If enlarging is required, it’s important to ensure the resolution of your design and images are high enough to produce a crisp print when the design is resized to scale.

High Resolution Banner Images

The general rule of thumb for most commercial wide format print is to have a resolution of 150ppi at the size it will be printed. For example, if your banner design is at 50%, the resolution needs to be at 300ppi, meaning the finished print will be 150ppi after it is enlarged to 100% for print. If your banner design is on an art board that is 2 times smaller than the actual print size, zoom in on your image by 200%, and check if the resolution is still high enough quality. Resolution requirement is also dependent on viewing distance. If close up viewing is not necessary, the ppi can be lower. For instance, a billboard print resolution can be less compared to a print used at an event booth where you will have customers viewing your banner up close. We do not recommend using typography in Photoshop, as the image will not be sharp enough to produce a high quality printed banner.

Vectorized Graphics and Fonts

When creating and selecting images for your banner design, it’s important to use large, high resolution images, and to keep your design vectorized. Vectorized graphics and text are achieved by converting pixel-based images, like a JPEG or PNG, and converting them into a vector-based image, like an SVG or EMF file. Vector graphics are constructed out of lines, curves, and shapes, and do not contain individual pixel boxes, meaning your banner design will not come out blurry or pixelated, even after resizing. Vector files allow for more flexibility should you need to change your design down the road, or implement it onto another sign.

Banner Colour Matching

For the most accurate banner colour results, we recommend working in CMYK mode, or at least converting from RGB mode to CMYK before submitting your banner design. CMYK refers to the colours used in a printer: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. By working in CMYK mode, you’ll be able to see the most accurate representation of your banner colours, as CMYK reflects designs made for physical printing, whereas RGB mode is used to view images on a screen. 

RGB mode is best for creating digital images, videos and other online content. RGB stands for the colours: red, green and blue. A source of light in a device can create any colour using these three colours. The can be customized and manipulated by digital graphic designers, making it a great mode to work in when designing an image for digital consumption. When RGB mode is used for banner printing, the colours you see on your screen will likely not translate to your physical banner, as printer ink does not contain the same colour profiles as online images.

When submitting your banner design, we recommend submitting all files in CMYK mode for the most accurate colour representation. We do not recommend submitting your banner design in RGB mode, as you may experience unexpected colour results. Metallic and fluorescent colours should also be avoided due to inaccurate colour printing results. If you’ve already created your banner design with spot colours, you may also submit your design in this format, or submit your files using a mixture of both spot colours and CMYK. 

If your banner design contains spot colours, we use Pantone colour matching software to help achieve the most accurate colour results possible. To ensure an accurate colour match, all spot colours must be titled exactly the same as shown on the Pantone approved pallets. This means all spot colours submitted must be titled in letter case, with the exact same amount of spacing as shown on the Pantone approved pallets; for example, “Pantone 2905 C”. All colours will be treated as a coated finish regardless of the character at the end of your spot colour title.

Pantone colour matching technology is great for achieving the closest colour match possible, and in some cases, can produce a colour match that is nearly spot on. Since colour matching varies between each design and can not be guaranteed, we recommend doing a test print first, especially for larger orders. 

Saving and Submitting Banner Designs  

Once your digital banner design is complete, save your design as a Print Ready PDF file with embedded fonts or outlined text. Embedding your font or outlining your text will let us view your design as you intended. When a system does not recognize a font, it will substitute it with the next closest option. 

It is also important to save your banner design with embedded images. Set safety margins for your design to ensure all critical information is within the safety line. For example, if you requested a final print size of 48” x 48”, all important information must be within 47” x 47” to account for the trim line. Bleed is only required for small format print, which is generally anything smaller than 13” x 19”. 

When saving your design file as a Print Ready PDF, make sure to choose a high quality compression to reduce uploading time without impacting the resolution of your design. 

By submitting your banner design as a Ready to Print PDF file, this will help ensure your banner doesn’t just look great on the screen, but will also look great in person on a physical banner. When saving in Ready to Print PDF format, your design can be printed as submitted without any alterations. 

If you’ve already submitted a design for print, please note that all custom orders are final sale. Once the production of your banner has begun, we cannot change the design, and will require a new order for production.