Custom Banners

Custom-printed banners from SpeedPro will stretch the possibilities of your event or business.

Our high-visibility, versatile graphics go beyond conventional signs. Bright and bold banners scale-up display logos, information, images, advertising and more. Businesses can use banners in many ways to advertise their business and display important information. Banners elevate and engage at trade shows, help corporate events stay on-brand and enliven public or private gatherings — all through top-quality, made-to-order banner prints.

Create your custom banner with the experts at SpeedPro. We fabricate and print our vinyl banner displays to your exact specifications, customizing our work to fit your display needs.

Table of Contents

What Are Vinyl Custom Banners?

Why Buy Custom Banners for My Business?

Types of Banners

How Do You Create Custom Banners?

Shop Custom Banners for Your Business Today

What Are Vinyl Custom Banners?

Vinyl is a synthetic material commonly used as the base substrate for a range of print jobs. When businesses and event coordinators need eye-catching displays, they choose banners — and therefore vinyl — as their medium. Vinyl supports a range of customizable print detailing that can bring your vision to life yet is strong enough to last where other signs don’t.

TYPES OF VINYL

Business and event banners use several different types of vinyl:

• Cast vinyl: Beginning as a liquid mixture and gradually heated into its solid, fabric-like form, cast vinyl produces a thin and hyper-flexible surface for creating custom banners. It’s a durable base that doesn’t sacrifice strength for its flexibility. Cast vinyl banners and signs can last years, even in outdoor applications frequently encountering the elements.
• Calendered vinyl:Calendered vinyl is the traditional canvas-like base for printed banners. The base material is “rolled” through printers to receive its graphics and lettering imprints. The result is a thicker (at least 3 to 6 millimeters) and more rigid substrate ideal for flat surfaces or applications. Calendered vinyl is known for producing general-purpose banners that won’t need to be stretched or bent to be displayed.
• Mesh vinyl: When the design of custom banners or signs calls for translucency, mesh vinyl is the solution. SpeedPro provides mesh banners fashioned from perforated material bases great for two-way visibility window banners, fence banners, backlit-type banners and more.

We determine the vinyl substrate choice largely by installation area. In other words, where you intend to mount your custom banner is the most critical factor in deciding which vinyl base will lend the most strength, the greatest stability and the longest life for your display needs.

Why Buy Custom Banners for My Business?

Level-up your displays — literally and figuratively — with hanging, standing or mounted banners. Here are some reasons you may want to employ these handy and versatile tools.

1. For Visibility

Custom banners are some of the first things people notice when they stroll down a street, step foot in your business, walk up to your trade show booth or enter a conference hall. By creating custom banner displays, you maximize exposure through strategically placed presentations that put your stamp on your space. Greater visual exposure reaps greater business rewards too:

• Banners hung or placed in memorable vantages help establish brand recall, or the likelihood that in today’s barrage of marketing campaigns and advertisements, your name stays top of mind.
• Higher brand recall means a higher chance of lead conversion. Targeted prospects see your custom banners and more intuitively associate your name with the products and services they need in your industry.
• At industry trade shows or other public events, custom banners are square one in curating a branded environment that draws foot traffic. At private functions, few other displays set the tone of the space to make it as memorable.
• Having custom banners for your company elevates the professionalism and aesthetics of your business or event. The cohesion, visibility and design of banners from SpeedPro will set your function apart.

2. For Variety

Vinyl banners are inherently customizable. You can tweak and alter nearly every design feature to your specifications, making the simple stand out and the stand-out sublime. The available customizable banner features include:

• Shape: Select from rectangular, square, cylinder and shield shapes for standing and hanging banners.
• Size: SpeedPro routinely prints banners in various impressive sizes. We can often alter dimensions based on your specified display type.
• Colors: SpeedPro can use the full color spectrum, achieving mild solvent inks and true solvent inks depending on your base substrate and a few other design details. Banner colors are bright, bold and professionally hued, never appearing over or undersaturated.
• Laminate: Banner laminates protect the banner while adding a unique visual finish. Laminates can range from matte to high-gloss sheens specified for indoor or outdoor environments.
• Stand: Banners traditionally come in three forms — grommet hanging, pole mounted or inserted into a custom banner stand. You pick the display mode, and we fabricate the necessary design features to achieve it.
• Design: Many SpeedPro studios staff in-house designers to assist you in the initial customization process. Likewise, our online banner order process makes it intuitive to upload a pre-existing design file straight to your local studio.

You want to customize your banner so it stands out to your customers. Having eye-catching colors and designs on your banners will differentiate you from your competitors and enhance your brand image. It’s always a good idea to have a consistent theme throughout your custom banners, such as using the same colors and logos, so customers can easily recognize your banners.

3. For Color-Matched, On-Brand Aesthetics

SpeedPro prints its banner orders using only fade-resistant, full-color inks. You can select from eco-solvent, traditionally solvent or UV ink formulas depending on your substrate base and personal preference. Each option creates high-resolution images in customizable shades and hues.

SpeedPro also employs color-matching technology with all its orders. Color perception differs from person to person and device to device, so it’s important that the design process implements a careful consideration of coloring. At SpeedPro, we color-match all our custom banners to ensure the exact colors you want appear on the final product.

Using this technology, our clients can rest assured that their custom banners will match their pre-existing color schemes or brand tones down to the last ink drop. This strategy removes the anxiety and guesswork from designing a business banner “from scratch” that must match pre-existing color aesthetics. With our color-matching technology, we make customizing your banner to your business as simple as possible.

4. For Adaptability

Custom banners are a canvas suited for dozens of public and private environments. Wherever eye-catching, energizing displays are needed, creating custom banners is both appropriate and ideal. SpeedPro regularly designs and prints custom banners for:

• Events
• Trade show displays
• Indoor and outdoor advertisements
• Store or venue grand openings
• Product or service launches
• Special promotions
• Seasonal sales
• Welcome signs
• Awards
• Celebrations and parties
• Holidays gatherings

5. For Durability

Custom banners provide a strong, long-lasting way to display key business messages and make big announcements. Their base vinyl creates an incredibly durable product — plus it can come with a laminate finish for added weatherability, fade-resistance and waterproofing.

Many custom banners can last years when they’re displayed in appropriate areas. Even outdoor banners won’t see fading, spotting or surface damage when they’re handled according to fabrication specs.

SpeedPro offers other features to bolster banner strength as well, including:

• Reinforced grommet rings: Ensuring hanging banners’ grommet holes stay intact
• Reinforced corners: For keeping canvas custom banners’ seams and most-stretched areas tear-resistant
• Pole pockets: To neatly tuck aluminum poles into without rips or tears

6. For Beauty

In addition to functional and marketing purposes, our custom banners can add aesthetic elements to your business. Beautiful banners can enhance your company’s overall design goals, eliciting the specific atmosphere you want. Aesthetic uses of custom banners include:

• Museums and galleries may display banners showcasing some of the beautiful artwork on display.
• Restaurants can highlight their menu with banners of their best dishes artfully plated.
• Paint stores can showcase their vibrant array of colors on a high-quality, colorful custom banner.
• Any business can use banners to showcase murals and artwork that enhance their company image and provide appealing decor.

The possibilities for custom banners reach as far as your imagination. Whether you want a functional banner to advertise or inform, or you’d like to use banners in your space to display photographs and artwork, SpeedPro has the customizing capacities to make your ideas a reality.

Design Custom Banners With Your Local SpeedPro

Types of Banners

In addition to their design flexibility, businesses can display their large-scale custom banners in several ways.

1. Hung Vinyl Banners

Hanging banners are a classic and high-impact way to draw eyes and garner attention to your unique display.

The most common way to achieve hung vinyl banners is to add grommets to your design. Grommets are incremental holes cut into the vinyl that allow rope, string or similar materials to thread through, then hold and hoist the banner into its final aerial position.

For an even more secure hanging method, use ball bungees. Ball bungees loop through and then tighten around reinforced grommet holes, fully securing a banner to signs, poles, frames and more.

2. Banner Stands and Pole Pocket Banners

Another popular custom business banner type is the standing banner.

Standing banners are mainstays at conferences and trade shows kiosks as well as special event displays. Accenting whatever area they’re placed in, standing banners have informational and aesthetic potential. They can act as welcome signs posted at doorways, relay directions, advertise products or service deals and still highlight a logo — a true display home run.

You can hang pocket banners or leave them in standalone form. This banner type is categorized by aluminum, steel or similar metal “arms” that insert into specially designed folds located around the edge of the banner. Once they’re inserted, the banner has the structure and ideal amount of stretch it needs to stand vertically.

3. Boulevard Banners

Boulevard banners, or street banners, are custom displays hung on streetlamps and posts outfitted with pole pockets. Many organizations opt for custom vinyl boulevard banners to accent their immediate environment. They add elegance and professionalism, and they’re a unique display type many cities and neighborhoods adopt to curate a more charming atmosphere.

For private organizations like businesses and schools, boulevard banners add a similar touch. Mounted street banners are a great way to hang logos, display a corporate mission statement or showcase high-resolution pictures representing your institution.

4. Mesh/Perforated Film Banner

SpeedPro prints mesh banners on special, perforated substrates that allow for translucency. Unlike the other vinyl bases, perforated mesh banners let light pass through and can also offer two-way visibility, not obstructing lines of sight for passersby on either side of the banner. This design makes custom mesh banners ideal for window and fence visual displays.

5. Custom Step and Repeat Signs

Step and repeat banners go in areas where people can take photographs in front of a fixed banner backdrop. People “step up” to have their picture snapped in front of the printed banner, which is large-format and adorned with specialty graphics, images and other visual prints.

The branding and engagement opportunities of step and repeat banners are vast:

• Businesses looking to spread their brand may order a step and repeat banner sprinkled with their logo for guests to snap a pic in front of, then invite them to share those photos on social media with a matching hashtag.
• Businesses hosting or attending corporate events and industry functions might order a step and repeat banner as a creative publicity tactic.
• Even private parties or gatherings may have a step and repeat banner put in place to offer a fun event experience, similar to what’s done with photo booths.

These examples are just a handful of the custom banner options that SpeedPro studios produce. See the complete list of custom banners printed by SpeedPro under “What Types of Banners Do You Offer” tab in the “Banner” section of our resource center.

How Do You Create Custom Banners?

SpeedPro employs a step-by-step order process for you to design, review and finalize your custom banners online.

Whether for a business gathering or a party, a public event or a private, invite-only celebration, custom banners set the stage in a way few graphics can. We make our ordering process quick and convenient with these three phases:

1. Image Selection

Before you fill out your local SpeedPro studio’s “Upload File” form on their website (to initiate the banner), you must first select your high-resolution image and accompanying text.

Like most large-format prints, the higher the resolution of your base images and text, the better the final printed banner. Here are some tips:

• Use Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator: SpeedPro studios utilize Adobe Creative Suite 4 on PCs for all design work. Using Adobe programs will ensure you and your SpeedPro account representative can share compatible files easily and helps keep image terms used during design consistent.
• Keep the final output resolution between 100 and 300 DPIs (dots-per-inch) at full size: This resolution will ensure a high-quality final image.
• Account for pockets, metal stands or grommets in your design: For stitched banners, allow a 1.25-inch bleed around the banner’s periphery. For banner pole pockets, allow between 4 and 9.5 inches for pocket-seam placement depending on pole diameter.

If you need assistance with the design of your banner, certain SpeedPro studios have complete graphic design services to help you curate an effective and memorable banner. A team of visual communication professionals with experience on all types of projects can help you create a design from scratch or update an existing one to be more effective.

2. File Preparation

Next, review your newly created image to ensure it meets our guiding file criteria:

• Submit files in .tif or .eps form: Files in these formats are the easiest for our digital-print system to convert. While we do accept .ai, .psd., .pdf and .jpg along with .tif and .eps, these images are harder for our system to “read,” meaning it’s harder to produce top-quality images. Also, note that we cannot edit .pdf and .jpg files.
• Submit images in CMYK (Cyan, Yellow, Magenta and Black) mode if possible: These modes are the easiest for our system as well.
• Submit images in vector art mode, then raster art mode if possible: Vector images and text can be scaled to nearly any size on their own since they aren’t made up of the thousands of micro-dots that raster art is. However, image-centric banners are more commonly made from raster input since raster allows for more coloration and resolution detailing.
• Create images to scale if possible: Otherwise, designate your file as a 1/2 or 1/4 scale of output size image.
• Provide Windows-compatible files: Again, this makes digital-to-printer outputs smoother and easier, resulting in a better final banner.

3. Order Review

Ask yourself the following questions before submitting your print request:

• Is your image file large enough? In general, the larger the original image you include in your online order form, the more SpeedPro can play with sizes and scales without sacrificing image clarity. You can purchase royalty-free images from various websites, but be sure to check with your SpeedPro professionals before purchasing to ensure they can enlarge the image.
• Is your image Windows-compatible? Double-check for a quicker order turnaround.
• Did I follow the official SpeedPro guidelines under “File and Image Preparation” outlined in our resource center? This section explains in greater detail how to prepare your files for printing.

Don’t hesitate to reach out with questions during your image and file preparation process. Not everyone is a graphic designer or digital artist — and you don’t have to be. Your local SpeedPro studio is glad to work with you to make your vinyl banner design process as smooth and seamless as possible so that you ultimately receive the best possible product.

Schedule a Consultation with SpeedPro for Custom Banners

Shop Custom Banners for Your Business Today

It’s your business. Your party. Your event. Your celebration. Create custom banners worthy of these moments — and ready again for those of tomorrow.

SpeedPro is a national network of full-service, large-format print experts specializing in impact visual communications. That means we print the highest-quality, highest-resolution, longest-lasting vinyl custom banners sourced from the industry’s best materials. That’s our promise to you. Let us prove it.

Find your nearby SpeedPro studio for full banner design and print services. Then request a quote or no-cost consultation today.