Banner Printing San Diego

Look at Me! - Custom, Full-color Banner Printing at http://www.sandlgraphicdesign.com/largeformat.html

Visual advertising takes many forms these days: billboards, automated marquees, giant animal balloons, even some poor guy dressed in a costume by the side of the road. But of all the confusion of ads competing for the average person's attention, which is the most effective both in terms of cost and communicating a message? Take a look at custom, full-color banners.

What Exactly is a Custom Full-color Banner?

Custom banners communicate a message to their intended audience typically in a large, colorful format. Banners come in a variety of sizes and materials based on their intended use - indoors or outdoors - their intended audience, and length of service required. Banners have become more and more desirable as an advertising vehicle due to the wide range of customization options, price, and flexibility in placement. Modern reprographics technology allows organizations requiring a banner to do most of the design and layout themselves and then simply submit the design for printing. This can add considerable cost savings since there is no need to hire creative talent. Of course, most printers have in-house creative staffs ready to assist in the design and layout of custom banners.

How are Custom Banners Printed?

There are three methods of producing banners commonly in use today. The first is Vinyl Lettering in which each letter or graphic is printed on a vinyl, adhesive-backed substrate and then affixed to the banner material. This is a very labor-intensive process and tends to be used for small runs. The second process is Digital Printing which prints each banner on very large format printers, much like your office inkjet printer only on steroids. These printers use different inks depending on the type of banner and longevity desired. Billboard sized banners are often made out of several smaller digital print banners which are then sewn together to create the whole image. Digital print banners provide for a great deal of latitude in customization and the main cost involved is the material on which the banner is to be printed. The third banner printing process is Silk Screening. The silk screening process creates "stencils", or screens, of the graphics to be used out of a fine mesh using a photographic process. The screens are then framed in wood or aluminum. Each stencil is then used to "lay-up" a color of ink on the banner by pulling a rubber squeegee over the screen with each color of ink. The process is repeated with each screen, eventually creating the graphic desired. This process is preferred for manufacturing many copies of the same banner.

Indoor or Outdoor ?

The wonderful thing about custom banners is the wide variety of installations that are possible. Banners can be installed across the outside of buildings, on fences, delivery truck side panels, between lamp posts...the list is endless. The main concern is whether the banner will be outdoors or indoors. Banners intended for use outdoors must be more ruggedly constructed and use special inks to withstand the weather, especially if the banner will be mounted for an extended period of time. Of course, these extra considerations add to the cost of outdoor banners relative to the same size indoor banner. Another factor to be considered when dealing with outdoor versus indoor banners is their visibility.

The average person viewing an outdoor banner typically has only a few seconds to make out and register the message contained on the banner. Therefore, outdoor banners should be attention grabbing, simple and properly sized. The size of the text will have the greatest influence on visibility. When calculating visibility, the average distance of the viewer from the banner must be determined. If the viewing audience is 100 feet from the banner, the text will have to be a minimum of 4 inches in height. As the viewer moves farther away, the size of the text increases exponentially. For example, a person standing roughly a city block away will not be able to see the message clearly unless the letters are 16 inches tall. At a quarter of a mile, the letters would have to be almost 5 feet tall!

Marketing Effectiveness

Comparing the marketing effectiveness of custom banners to other forms of advertising is a little tricky due to the sheer variety of uses for banners. If we consider their effectiveness compared against billboards, banners offer many advantages. Banners are generally much less expensive. Billboards are typically priced based on their "showings". This is a rating which is calculated based on the number of people in a given population who will see the billboard. Billboards with higher showings can run to many thousands of dollars per month to lease and that's not including the printing costs. Billboards have a fixed location and may share space with other advertisements. Banners can be easily moved for maximum viewing opportunities. Banners may also be re-used again and again as necessary.

Stand Out from the Crowd

Custom, full-color banners clearly have many advantages for communicating information to the public. Digital reprographics have revolutionized the ability of organizations large and small to spread their message in an eye-catching, creative and cost-effective manner. The only limitation is imagination and a place to show it off!

For your custom Full Color Banner visit http://www.sandlgraphicdesign.com/largeformat.html or http://www.SandLGraphicDesign.com

Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/graphic-design-articles/banner-printing-san-diego-638504.html