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My wife has a little artwork business she started during the first lockdown and it is growing legs. As well as online sales and local retailers, she sells direct at markets, craft fairs, shows and festivals etc. I'm looking to get her a couple of vinyl banners printed. There are loads of suppliers online and it's very difficult to gauge quality from a quick web peruse, so drawing on the bottomless well of STW experience and expertise, I was wondering if has anyone got any good recommendations based on experience?
We are probably looking at around 7 x 3 ft with grommets/eyelets in the corners. It will have a logo based on one of her pieces so print quality is important. It will be used outdoors, in all weathers so it will need to be fairly heavy duty and resilient. We don't mind paying a little more for a good product.
Suggestions?
Cheers, I'll take a look 👍
Make sure they are hemmed and eyeleted - hemmed edges are stronger.
440gsm is standard weight, 510gsm is a bit tougher. Depends where it's going - people do forget banners are temporary signage though and won't survive gale force winds! 🙂
As for print quality - all the online people will be printing on some serious high-end kit so that shouldn't be an issue.
Or you could try your local sign/print company, many are equally as competitive for this sort of stuff and you can see samples.
Danny at Essex Banners has always been great - quality, speed of turnaround and price:
As someone who does a lot of this type of thing (I'm presently designing a 3m x 1m vinyl window decal for a local business) I'd definitely recommend finding a local sign/print company. You can have a chat with them and they'll give you some good advice about exactly what you need. As someone has said already, prices will be similar to online anyway.
Theres loads of different variables on materials, stock, inks etc, so a local print shop will be able to do the best job for you. And if your business is artwork, it's always worth building a relationship with a local printer. Mine is really pro-active and when he buys new kit in or has access to new print processes always has a chat to me about possibilities.
I don't know where you are but I'm in Bury and use these guys. I couldn't recommend them highly enough. I've been using them for about 5 years and they're brilliant! Always absolutely top quality jobs
440gsm is standard weight, 510gsm is a bit tougher. Depends where it’s going – people do forget banners are temporary signage though and won’t survive gale force winds! 🙂
Good advice. If the winds get that bad she will pack up long before all her art prints and greetings cards get blown away. We have actually experienced this a few times on a local market with covered stalls!
She does have a great local printer she used for her art. He doesn't print banners but he may be able to recommend someone local who does. Good call, thanks.
andyrm, will take a look at Essex banners 👍
These are who we use at work. Sign and Label.
Good prices, but also local which is convenient as Binners says. NE Wales.
@binners, many thanks. The local option sounds good. She has a great relationship with he art work printer, if we could find a similar local business that does banners, that would be great. We are in Ludlow and her printer is in Craven Arms. There is bound to be someone nearby, I will get researching.
@tthew thanks!
I make loads of these, happy to do you a deal if you happen to be nearby (Kent) and can collect! We don't send a lot of stuff out though & haven't got a great deal with a courier so probably wouldn't be particularly cheap if we had to post it.
They're largely much of a muchness, as long as you look after it (most people don't!) which means roll it up loosely print outwards (don't fold it!!) and store it in a tube. If they're going outside definitely recommend some kind of bungey fixing not a cable tie.
(like this https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/272648044112?hash=item3f7b16fe50:g:Ul4AAOSw~y9ZAwcD)
Most of them - including ours! - will be solvent printed, which is fine (done it that way for many years). The latest generation of UV printers will produce one which is massively better though, if you find someone with one of those! Funnily enough, I was just visiting the machinery manufacturer yesterday and hope to get ours installed later this month 😎
Wow, STW comes up trumps again! Thanks all! Zilog thanks, great offer but we are a fair distance way away. She uses those little bungee things already for securing other display material, they're ideal, thanks.
Think where it's going to be placed too and adjust artwork to suit location - I've lost count of the amount I've printed with almost a novels worth of text on them - then customer moans they can't be read when driven past at 40+ mph on a busy A-road!
"Yeah - I did tell you there was too much text"! 🙂
Think where it’s going to be placed too and adjust artwork to suit location – I’ve lost count of the amount I’ve printed with almost a novels worth of text on them – then customer moans they can’t be read when driven past at 40+ mph on a busy A-road!
“Yeah – I did tell you there was too much text”! 🙂
Yep! It will be very simple. Large logo, business name, brief tag line/description of what she does, a phone number, email mail address and maybe the social media logos
The latest generation of UV printers will produce one which is massively better though
@zilog6128 - thats what the printer I use has recently taken delivery of. The print quality is staggeringly good. The advancement in modern digital print really is bonkers!
yup, I was pretty blown away. The durability of the print in regards to scratch resistance etc is also way better. This was me yesterday:thats what the printer I use has recently taken delivery of. The print quality is staggeringly good. The advancement in modern digital print really is bonkers!
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Similar to Zilog, am in the business. Bristol if that helps.
@Zilog what printer did you go for?
Guessing Mimaki or Roland? Looked at a Ricoh and mimaki last year but opted for a 10 colour Epson Ecosolvent in the end as we also have a UV flat bed/roll to roll Arizona.
Mine turned up from Essex Banners.
To say it is poor is an understatement.
We discussed it but I'm not sure he accepted he's equally responsible for the artwork and how it will come out on a banner.
Add pixelation and bleeding as well as a touch up with marker pen, well let's just say, he gets 1* from me.
Who did the artwork?
Any pics of the print?
OP here. We've discovered that the local printer she already uses for her greeting cards and art prints, also does banners which we hadn't realised. He's been ace so far with all her other stuff, producing very high quality work and quickly making changes if the proofs have needed tweaking.
I'm going in to see him later this week to discuss options and ask his advice. His preliminary estimates are very competitive with the online sellers too. As we already have an ongoing good relationship with him, it's a no brainer to go with him for the banners. Thanks to everyone for their advice - particularly those who said go local!
Sorry to hear of your woes weeksy.
My artwork was a PNG of my logo from forum.
If it wasn't good enough resolution I'd have expected them to message me and let me know. When I've bought custom stuff from say t-shirt studio they've come back and said "we need a better image"
From a distance it's not terrible, bit the pics I think show why I was unhappy.
In his defence he said "send us a better image and we'll do it again for free" but that pissed me off as he made it sound like he was doing me a favour, so I told him not to bother.
I've printed worse!! 🙂
But I do tell people if it's going to be rubbish in advance. Most people don't seem to care though. 🤷♂️
Indeed, we have had to print worse.
But If that was us, with that logo, it would take about 5 mins to reproduce it from scratch, in vectors.
It would usually be easier to do that, than explain to the customer that the file was junk for this purpose and wait for them to get hold of the correct file, if they can! By which time it would be right up to the deadline.
yep same, I wouldn’t even mention it to the client, like you say just quicker to sort it out, usually they won’t have a better quality one anyway or really understand what you’re asking!!It would usually be easier to do that, than explain to the customer that the file was junk for this purpose and wait for them to get hold of the correct file
The marker pen is very poor! (I have done that in the past, on 1-day event banners 😀 Not on something that’s obviously going to be kept though!!)
sorry, didn’t see this last week! Yes, Roland. Been using their kit for 20 years now so unless they suddenly go terrible not going to look past them these days! Got 2 ageing eco-solvents which I am replacing with a VG2 eco-solvent & LEC2 roll UV. Been tempted by a UV flatbed before but we haven’t really got the space, and although it would be useful sometimes it’s not really the best tool for our bread & butter work. Plus, £££££ 😂@Zilog what printer did you go for?
Guessing Mimaki or Roland? Looked at a Ricoh and mimaki last year but opted for a 10 colour Epson Ecosolvent in the end as we also have a UV flat bed/roll to roll Arizona.
Didn't see this thread first time round!
We are in Ludlow and her printer is in Craven Arms. There is bound to be someone nearby, I will get researching.
I spent a few weeks delivering the blank rolls and paper to lots of printing houses over your area and round the Swindon, Bristol and Weston-Super-Mare ones too last summer. There's loads of printers all over, much more than I would have thought, from the big boys to blokes in sheds. I don't have any experience of their products though so can't give any recommendations but they are out there and they were all busy with work.
yep same, I wouldn’t even mention it to the client, like you say just quicker to sort it out, usually they won’t have a better quality one anyway or really understand what you’re asking!
Yip! That blank look on someone’s face as you try and communicate what format you’d ideally like it in and why the .png the size of a postage stamp they gave you won’t print on a 10ft banner
Like you’re trying to explain quantum physics to them. In Arabic. Easier to just spend ten minutes just drawing it up in illustrator 😂
Yip! That blank look on someone’s face as you try and communicate what format you’d ideally like it in and why the .png the size of a postage stamp they gave you won’t print on a 10ft banner
Like you’re trying to explain quantum physics to them. In Arabic. Easier to just spend ten minutes just drawing it up in illustrato
I'd have had no issues at all asking my guy who did the logo for a higher resolution version of the image. I'm IT nerdy enough to know the difference between a gif and a jpg 🙂 however, that didn't happen.... But the bleeding, well that's not the images fault, neither is the touch-up.
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51869754558_afc25a5546_z.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51869754558_afc25a5546_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2n2y3V5 ]2022-02-08_01-01-54[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/ ]Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr
I wasn’t having a go at you, fella. The printer should have either flagged it up or sorted it themselves. One of the other. They clearly did neither.
Touching up in marker pen really is poor. I might show those to my printer as I’m off to pick up a big canvas from him this morning. I shall report back his reaction 😂
Touching up in marker pen really is poor.
He commented that it wasn't touched up as "we don't do that", however, if i could take more detailed pics or hold it up, it's really clear how it's been drawn back on. Meh, no biggy, it was £30 and for a banner to hang from a gazebo so people know where we are in a trackday paddock, it serves a purpose... but i can't recommend obviously.
p.s. I didn't think you were having a go.
It’s obviously had a minor head strike, it happens sometimes. Usually due to temperature of the media and the temperature of the printer settings not being quite right. That looks quite small, but certainly frustrating. Not going to say I haven’t ever got the pens out or asked one of the team to do the same. Yesterday I printed 4x 18m banners, if one of them had had a strike at the end I would have sworn lots! For this client I would have reprinted the whole thing and offered the “B” grade one very cheap or skipped it. In the OP case the fact that the file was junk and that wasn’t dealt with plus the head strike and the fact the banner will be viewed quite close, screams start again to me. Out of interest what did it cost?
Edit £30 is very cheap. What is it 2m x 750mm? That’s why they aren’t fixing files and doing the too and fro with the customer to sort files.
£30 give or take mate... I'd have to check if you wanted it exactly, but roughly that.
I didn't use this particular guy as he was cheap, but because he was recommended up above... it was only later i saw that some of you lot do it, otherwise i'd have given an STW the business of course.
If that was £30 inc VAT and posted - then it's a right bargain. Don't get why people work for nothing.
Looks like he's got a print-head issue too as there's black bleeding into the red.
then it’s a right bargain
not sure bargain is the phrase i'd use....
Print mode likely culprit for poor quality print. Putting too much ink down, wrong temp settings, Cheap media. Poor temperature control in workshop, cold roll of media. continual head strikes due to all of above = jibbered heads!