Flex, vinyl or fabric: choosing a banner material

The three common choices

Each is right somewhere and wrong elsewhere.

• Flex (PVC) — cheapest, weatherproof, glossy. The default for outdoor hoardings. Reflects light, which can wash out under flash photography.
• Star flex / matte vinyl — non-reflective, better for anything photographed or lit from the front.
• Fabric — matte, no glare, folds without permanent creases. Best for exhibitions and anything transported repeatedly. More expensive and less weatherproof.

Outdoor lifespan

Under Indian sun, expect roughly six to twelve months of good appearance from standard outdoor flex before fading becomes noticeable. UV-stable inks extend that considerably and are worth specifying for anything meant to last a year or more.

Finishing and fixing

How a banner is finished matters as much as the material. Hemming folds 25 mm of material back and stitches it, which stops the edges fraying and gives the eyelets something solid to grip.

Eyelets are punched at roughly 500 mm intervals through the hem. In windy or exposed positions ask for closer spacing, because a banner tears at the eyelet long before the material itself fails.

• Hemmed edges with eyelets — the standard for anything tied to a frame or fence.
• Rod pockets top and bottom — for hanging banners that need to stay flat.
• Wind slits — worth considering on large outdoor banners in exposed positions.

Sizing for the space

Measure the frame before designing, not after. A banner ordered to a rounded figure and then fitted to an awkward gate always ends up either sagging or stretched.

A useful rule for text height: about 25 mm of capital height for every 10 metres of viewing distance. A banner read from 20 metres needs 50 mm capitals, which is far larger than most people assume when designing on a screen.

The specifications this applies to

For reference, here is how it works out on the products this comes up on most often.

• Vinyl Banners — 305 × 305 mm finished, 25 mm bleed, 100 DPI minimum, from ₹40 per unit with a minimum of 10.

Ordering

Every file is checked automatically before printing, so a mistake in any of this is caught while it can still be corrected rather than after a run is on paper.

Standard delivery is free to every PIN code in India — two working days to a metro, up to twelve to the islands — and prices include GST, so the figure on the product page is the figure charged. Add a GSTIN at checkout and the invoice carries it for input credit.

Choosing without seeing it

Paper and finish are difficult to judge from a screen, which is why the descriptions on each product say what a stock is best for, what it is poor for, and what it feels like in the hand rather than only listing a GSM figure.

If a decision genuinely hinges on the feel, order the smallest quantity first. On most products the minimum is 100 units, which costs very little against the risk of committing a full run to a stock that turns out wrong.