Large Format Printing Guide
Practical guidance from the team that surveys, makes and installs commercial signage. If you have a live project, we can help you choose the right route.
Large format printing covers everything from a single poster to a full building wrap, and the right material and finish depends heavily on where the print will end up and how long it needs to last there. A print destined for a week-long indoor event has completely different requirements to one going on an exposed outdoor hoarding for a year, and choosing the wrong substrate for the job either wastes money on unnecessary durability or fails early when it needed to last. This guide covers how to choose the right material. We produce large format prints in-house for clients across Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire and London.
We look forward to hearing from you
Indoor short-term graphics can use more economical papers and boards, while anything outdoors or long-term needs a weather-resistant vinyl or mesh with a protective laminate.
Choosing the right material
Indoor short-term graphics can use more economical papers and boards, while anything outdoors or long-term needs a weather-resistant vinyl or mesh with a protective laminate. Viewing distance also matters: a print viewed from a few feet away (a poster) needs a different resolution and finish approach to one viewed from a road (a hoarding or banner).
Common questions
Lower resolution is acceptable the further away a print will be viewed from, so a roadside banner needs far less detail per inch than a close-viewed poster.
Yes, a protective laminate is standard for anything going outdoors to protect against UV fading and moisture.
Vector formats are preferred for logos and text, with high-resolution raster images for photography, though we can advise on specific requirements.
Close colour matching is possible, particularly using Pantone references, though some variation is normal between screen, print process and material.
This depends on size and finishing requirements, but straightforward jobs are often turned around within a few days.