In this class we’re going to learn about the basics of designing a banner at HalfPriceBanners.com.  Any confusion that may arise or questions you may have will be answered if you write an email (lisam@halfpricebanners.com) or give us a call (1-866-527-1363) with your concerns.

One of the first decisions you have to make when designing a banner is the size that you should be ordering. Much of this can be decided based on what you are using the banner for, and your designer can help you make this decision if you aren’t sure.  The options at Half Price Banners are listed as (height in feet X width in feet).  For example, the 2×6 option is 2 feet tall by 6 feet wide.  Any of the listed sizes can be turned so that they go vertically instead of horizontally. 

The artwork that you send in is usually proportionate to a fixed ratio of sizes. If you are able to measure the length and width of the artwork you should be able to guess approximately what size you need.  If you don’t know how to do this, you may choose a size that is close to the correct size and the designer will further discuss other options when he receives the order. We can always change the banner size after you place an order – it’s no problem.

When you place a banner order, you have three options for full color banners.  You can submit a print ready file, meaning it is complete and no manipulation needs to be done to the file for it to be ready before printing on a banner.  You can have us design your banner for you, which will allow you to upload pieces of the banner like logos or graphics, and tell us what you’d like it to say.  Finally, you can design the banner yourself using our one-of-a-kind Banner Builder tool.  The banner builder doesn’t currently allow you to upload your own artwork, however if you let the designer know that you want to do so, he or she will respond with ways to do so after the order is placed.  We encourage you to pick whichever option works best for you… there’s no one preferred way to have your banner printed.

From the time you order a banner, to the time the banner arrives, will usually take 3-5 days with Half Price Banners’ basic ground shipping (ao long as there are no complications with the artwork).  Upgraded shipping can speed up the process, but please realize that even with Next Day shipping we also have to have time to send you a proof and time to print the banner, let it dry, and finish it with hems and grommets.  If you need rush service, you’ll need to order Next Day shipping and make sure to approve your proof almost as soon as it arrives in your email, but in some cases this will allow us to have the banner to you the day after you placed your order.

Thanks for coming to class today… we’ll have a quiz next week over this material! I’m looking forward to sending you a high quality banner at half price.

Always roll the banner up when storing it.  If the banner is folded over itself there is a chance that the banner will crease or that the ink may transfer from one side to the other. 

Try to keep the banner in a spot that will stay room temperature.  Heat or humidity can cause the banner to deteriorate faster and if the conditions are right may cause ink transfer.

Keep the rolled banner in the box that your order shipped with. It will protect against smashing in storage which can lead to creases.

Overall, storing your banner isn’t a difficult thing to do. You just need to remember to keep the banner rolled, protected and dry.

When you design a banner, avoid using a background image that is going to distract from the message that you are trying to convey.  If the image spans the entire banner and you plan on putting text over the top of this, generally the text will get lost.  It will cause a struggle for the viewer about where their attention should be drawn, and most people won’t look at the banner long enough to figure out what it says.

When you’re choosing wording for your banner, a good rule of thumb is to try to recognize what is most important, next most important, and least important to say.  It will give you a better idea of what your overall message is and allow you to get rid of anything that doesn’t need to be said.  This will keep the reader from becoming overwhelmed.  If the banner is doing its job, they’ll be contacting you for more information.

Try to keep it to 3-5 lines of text and organize it from least to most important based on the size.  Not everything should be different sizes, but the heading should be bigger than the sub-heading and the sub-heading bigger than the body text.  

Generally you want to stick with one or two fonts for the whole banner, three at the most.  Too many fonts distract the eye, can cause confusion about what is the most important information on the banner, and make the banner hard to read.  You want to keep the message as simple and cohesive as possible.  If there’s too much going on, you’ll lose the viewer when they become overwhelmed. 

Knowing what you want to convey with your banner can help you with the design of your banner, but you should keep in mind that you need to keep it simple or you could frighten away potential customers.  By keeping the text concise and designing a background that doesn’t distract, you can be sure to communicate your banner message effectively.

Next week we will be going over banner colors.

When choosing a font to use for an email or essay, it is difficult to go wrong, so long as the font isn’t a symbol font like Wingdings.  On banners, however, legibility can be an issue. When a font is used in a large scale format, the thinner fonts are going to have issues. Thin lines that make up different parts of the letters may disappear at a distance.  For this reason you may want to go with something that has a heavier stroke. It doesn’t necessarily need to be bold, but if you are using a thinner type, sometimes making it bold will eliminate visibility issues that could have arisen otherwise. Script fonts, while very ornate, are usually not a strong choice for legibility. They are fine for very large words that may span the entirety of the banner but for smaller copy usually won’t work very well.

Another concern that you should be aware of when choosing your typeface is the level of professionalism you want to express. A serif font is usually considered a more formal font and sans serif a little bit lighter toned, but there are obviously exceptions to this rule. If you are going for a more playful banner but still want to have a professional feel, many people opt for Comic Sans. Please don’t make this same mistake. Comic Sans is a font that lacks any professionalism at all. It is better to reserve Comic Sans for kids’ banners only.  A better font to use instead of Comic Sans would be something like Chianti or something along those lines. 

Finally, compatibility is a problem that may occur where you chose to use a font that you downloaded and your banner company does not have a copy. If this is true, there are ways around the problem. You can send the font to the printer, or if you are using a design software you can change the font to outlines. Issues with converting the fonts to outlines may occur in that if there are mistakes with your text or want to change something, once the font has been converted to outlines the printer cannot make these changes. However, most banner printers have a large library of fonts to choose from and most times will not have any problems with compatibility with their software.

I hope this will help in choosing your banner font. Next time we will be providing advice on how to choose the right size for your banner.

DPI is the number of pixels, or dots per inch, in the file. The higher the number, the better the resolution of your art will be. The better the resolution, the clearer the picture will be. This is the reason that photos found on the internet rarely work for printing banners. The standard DPI for web images is 72 DPI, and most of these images are not bigger than a 3 inch by 3 inch space. So when you blow that up the size of a banner, such as 36 inches by 36 inches, you are effectively reducing the number of pixels per inch to 6 DPI.

Even if you take the art you found online and raise the DPI to 100 using a program like Adobe Photoshop, it does not make the image look any clearer. You have to start from a high quality file to get high quality output.

Think of it this way. If you have a globe and you use a magnifying glass to look closer at it, you won’t be able to see any buildings or any better detail than what is already being seen on the globe except to make it larger. You have to have a high resolution image to begin with, there is not a way to “Res Up” low-resolution artwork.

If you absolutely have to have the art that you found online, you can redraw it using a vector program such as Adobe Illustrator. Banner printer companies can do this for you, but generally they charge an Additional Design Fee.

Next week we will be covering banner design software.