Banners can be made with digitally cut self-adhesive vinyl or by digital printing directly onto banner materials with aqueous, solvent, UV or latex ink systems. Whether you cut or print, you will first need to start with a design and graphic design software. The feature list in your software can sometimes make or break your designs, so limiting yourself to inexpensive software can hurt your competitiveness. Standard software packages like Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop, CorelDRAW or FlexiSIGN will enable you to create distinguishing projects that sell banners and work well for your clients. You will need a modestly powerful computer to design with and usually another one to drive the cutters and printers with special RIP (raster image processor) software or cutting/printing software.
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Plotters and printers:
If you’re going to create vinyl-decorated banners, you’ll need a commercial grade vinyl cutter with good tracking. There are many such cutters in the marketplace with varying widths and feature sets, including the ability to vary cut force and speed. These are ideal because of their precision and media handling. Most entry-level cutters are fine for small decals, but don’t cut accurately beyond 8 – 10 feet. Ask about tracking before you choose a cutter to ensure that it will deliver accuracy for the lengths you require. Ten feet might seem silly, but pin striping a recreational vehicle is at least ten feet, maybe twenty+, so think about your possible future products, not just the common ones.
The alternative to cut vinyl lettering is to digitally print your banner. Digitally printed banners are the de facto standard in the market place. With the prices for entry level digital printers at their lowest in years, there’s no excuse to own a sign shop and not have one. Banners can be produced with every ink type that digital printers typically are using, but the materials used must be compatible with the ink set in the printer. Water based inks need coated media, solvent printers typically do not need coated media, nor do UV curable or latex inks. When in doubt, check with the media manufacturer about an inks compatibility and longevity with the media in question. There are a myriad of choices in the digital printer world and your choice will depend on your products size and your business production needs.
Printers can be purchased that have basic ink sets of CMYK or extended ink sets that have light cyan, light magenta, light blacks, metallic silver and white. The majority of printers that one would consider for banner printing start at the 30” (762 mm) width mark, but can go all the way up to the maximum width of 5 meters (196.8”) in width. One of the lesser-known advantages of going wide is the ability to print multiple narrower rolls across the media width (each roll is a different job). This alone will increase productivity for narrower jobs and provide capability for wide material printing. Currently latex printers stop at the 126” (3200 mm) width, but both solvent and UV curable devices are available up to the maximum 5-meter width.