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Banner Making: From Envision to Completion

Vinyl banner layout

If for example, we wanted to produce a vinyl banner with just our logo.

These are the steps we would follow:

Artwork Requirements

First, and most importantly we would determine whether or not we can make a vinyl lettered banner with the given artwork. As mentioned in the earlier section, vinyl banners can only be produced directly from artwork in vector based format. Consequently, If the artwork provided is a raster or bitmapped format, it would then be reworked to a vector graphic to make computer cut vinyl lettering possible. This means the banner shop producing your banner would require a graphic artist to draw a duplicate of the artwork to meet vector specifications. Many customers with raster artwork with gradients and shades of color will find it benefical, and in many cases cheaper to have the banner digitally printed directly from the raster image instead.

Determining the correct banner size

The next step is to determine the size of the banner that is needed to make it effective. The banner size depends on factors such as limits on the amount of space available, distance from the intended reader (see our visibility /readability chart), and ultimately banner making budget. After this determination of banner size is made, the layout of the acual banner can be finalized by making the banner shape match the shape proportions of the artwork. By examining our artwork above, we can see that the proportion of the artwork is approximately 4 times wider than it is tall. Let's say that we determined that we want our banner to be 10' wide (120" wide). Since we know that the width is four times wider than the height, we can calculate that the height will be approximately 30" tall by deviding the required banner width of 120" by the aspect ratio of 4.

Vinyl cutting

The next step is to design the artwork in our banner making software. We layout the banner or scale up the artwork to its full size once it is imported to this program. Next we send the paths of the vector arwork one color at a time to the plotter that will cut the vinyl. Sheets of adhesive backed vinyl for each color are loaded into our vinyl cutting equipment and cutting begins in the following manner:

• First we would cut … The clock hands and text "ntime" in orange vinyl.
• Next we would cut … The text "Banners" and "com", and the clock face in white vinyl.
• Next we would cut … The body of the clock in black vinyl.
• Then, we would cut … The drop shado behind the clock in yellow vinyl
• Finally, we would place … Orange layer over the white layer, over the black, over the yellow, which would be placed on a dark green banner. Yeilding the following results:

Banner material

In this case of this banner we want our vinyl graphics on a dark green banner at a finished size of 120" x 30". So we would cut our dark green banner material 1" larger on all four sides to 122" x 32". This added material allows us to fold back 1" of banner material when making a double stitched hem on all four sides resulting in a finished size of 120" x 30". For installation purposes is is good to add grommets (brass eyelets) in each corner and every 2 - 3 feet along the top and sides. This is done before the vinyl graphics are applied, only after it is re-measured, cleaned and prepared for vinyl application.

Placing the lettering

One of the benefits of vector art is the software recognizes shapes and lines rather than a bitmap. This allows the banner maker to scale the graphic to the chosen banner size without sacrificing resolution or image quality. Measurements between graphical objects in a vector file remain in constant proportion, thus measurements of vinyl placement are given by the artwork. These measurements are transferred to the banner material, utilizing the method of taping (explained in the next section) to maintain the original spacing and layout.