A Guide to Large Format Printing

Large format is one of the best ways to grab attention, whether that's a banner across your storefront, a roller banner at an event, a poster in the window or signage outside your premises. Designing for it is mostly common sense, but a few things genuinely work differently once you're printing at a metre or more, and getting them right makes all the difference. Here's what to keep in mind.

Keep the design bold and simple

Big does not mean room for everything. A banner or poster carrying a novel's worth of text is hard to take in and usually ignored, which rather defeats the point. Lead with one clear message.

Use a clear hierarchy rather than one font size throughout. Pick out the most important phrase, make it big, and let everything else support it. That's what draws a passer-by in from across the road.

And proof it, then have someone who hasn't seen it proof it again. A typo you'd skip over on screen is very hard to ignore at over a metre tall, and once you've approved the proof and it's printed, it's too late to fix.

Resolution: big prints need fewer pixels than you'd think

This is the one that surprises people. Because large format is viewed from further away, it does not need the 300 ppi that a fine art print or a flyer does. For a large poster, around 150 ppi at final size is the minimum we'd want, and a big banner seen from across a car park can be lower still. As a rule, the bigger the piece and the further away it's seen, the less resolution it needs.

There's one trap worth knowing. To keep file sizes sensible, very large designs are often built at a reduced scale, say quarter size, at the correct proportions. That's good practice, but be careful your software doesn't quietly down sample the images when you export. If you design at 25% and export images at 300 ppi, then we enlarge the file to full size, those images end up at only 75 ppi. So turn image down sampling off, or set it high enough to survive being blown up. If you're unsure, send it over and we'll check it for you.

Work at the finished proportions

Set your artwork to the exact proportions of the finished item: a banner that's three times as wide as it is tall should be a 3:1 file. For very large pieces, design at a fraction of full size (half or quarter) to keep the file manageable, keeping those proportions exact so it scales up cleanly. Most design software and PDFs top out at around five metres in any direction, which is another good reason to work at a reduced scale for the really big jobs.

Colour and file format

Supply your artwork in CMYK. Anything sent in RGB will be converted, and bright screen colours can shift noticeably in the process, so you'll get a truer result designing in CMYK from the start. Our guide to RGB and CMYK explains why, and our file checklist covers the file basics.

Wherever possible, supply vector artwork with the fonts outlined. Vector stays perfectly sharp at any size, which is exactly what you want when a logo is blown up to fill a banner.

One more thing that catches designers out: keep your contrast strong. Subtle differences that look fine on screen, such as a dark grey on a black background or pale text on white, can disappear entirely at large sizes and on textured materials. Give overlapping colours plenty of separation.

Bleed and finishing

Large-format items need bleed, just like trimmed press work, but how much depends on the material and the finish. A simple poster needs only a few millimetres, while a hemmed and eyeletted PVC banner needs more room around the edge for the hem to fold into. Because it varies so much, the simplest thing is to tell us the product you're after and we'll tell you exactly what to allow, or provide a template set up correctly for you.

Roller banners: mind the base

Roller banners have one quirk worth knowing before you design. The bottom section of your artwork rolls down into the base unit and is hidden from view when the banner is up. It still needs to be there, but it must be kept clear of anything important. Keep your logo, text and key content well above it, and use only background colour or imagery in that strip. It's typically around 150mm, though it varies by unit, so typically the height of the graphic will be 2150mm.

Products and getting started

We provide posters, banners, roller banners, signage and plan prints, in standard sizes or made to measure. Just tell us what you have in mind, or use our quote form, and we'll work out our best price and let you know current lead times.

We're a small studio in Winchcombe, near Cheltenham, and we're always happy to look over your artwork before it goes to print, so if you're unsure about size, resolution or setup, send an email to info@saxonprint.com first and we'll point you the right way.