Banners & flags

A properly made PVC banner, hemmed all round with eyelets at sensible centres and tied off correctly, will give you two to three years outdoors and considerably longer if it comes down between uses. The print itself outlasts the fixings more often than not.

Almost every banner failure we are called out to is a fixing failure rather than a material one: bungee cord perished, cable ties cut through the eyelet, or a banner tied only at the corners so the middle bellies out and tears. Wind is what destroys banners. If it is going somewhere exposed we will recommend mesh, which lets the wind through, or reinforced edges and closer eyelet spacing — and if you take it down over winter it will still look right the following spring.

Solid PVC is the standard: opaque, strong colour, sharp print, and the right choice for anything on a wall, a fence panel or a frame where wind is not a factor.

Mesh is perforated, so wind passes through instead of pushing against it. On scaffolding, an exposed roadside frame, or a high building elevation, mesh is the difference between a banner that survives the winter and one that takes the fixings with it in the first gale. The trade-off is a slight softening of colour density, because some of the surface is holes — barely noticeable at the distances these are read from. If your banner is going anywhere high or exposed, mesh is usually the right answer.

A feather flag is the tall outdoor flag on a fibreglass pole, printed on lightweight fabric, fixed with a ground spike, a cross base or a water base. It is for outside — forecourts, events, showgrounds, the front of a unit — and it moves in the wind, which is exactly what catches the eye.

A roller banner (or pull-up banner) is the indoor one that retracts into an aluminium cassette and stands on its own feet. It is for exhibitions, receptions, showrooms and conferences, sets up in about fifteen seconds, and packs into a carry bag. They are not interchangeable — a roller banner outdoors blows over within the hour, and a feather flag indoors has nothing to fly in. If you tell us where it is going we will point you at the right one.

Yes. Roller banner cassettes, feather flag poles with your choice of spike, cross base or water base, banner frames, telescopic display stands and replacement graphics for hardware you already own are all part of what we supply.

Replacement graphics are worth knowing about. The cassette on a roller banner outlives its printed graphic by years, so when your phone number changes or the offer ends, you often only need a new cartridge rather than a whole new unit. Bring the stand in and we will tell you whether it takes a replacement and what size it needs.

Faster than almost anything else we make. With print-ready artwork in hand, a straightforward hemmed and eyeleted PVC banner can often be produced within a couple of working days, and we have turned same-day jobs around for people who needed something for a Saturday.

The variable is artwork rather than production. If we are designing from scratch, allow time for a proof and your approval. If you are up against a real deadline — an event, an opening, a match day — tell us the date at the first phone call and we will tell you honestly whether it is achievable rather than finding out together on the Friday.

Either. If you have print-ready artwork we will use it. If you have a logo and a rough idea, we will lay it out for you and send a scaled proof before anything is printed.

Design is where most banners are won or lost. The commonest mistake is trying to fit everything on — full address, five services, three phone numbers and a paragraph of text — on something people read for two seconds from thirty feet away. We will push you towards fewer, larger words, because a banner that can actually be read from the road does the job that a banner covered in small print does not.