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These are banner years for wide-format imaging professionals producing flags and banners for corporate, municipal, and consumer clients. Printer, substrate, and ink advancements have helped usher in more vibrant and creative banners and flags. And technology has also made possible larger and more eye-catching products.
As the evolution of print technology makes more sophisticated and intricate banners possible, customers are catching on to the potential of the medium, says Tom Jeffreys, president and owner of Tom Jeffreys Sign & Banner in Huntsville, AL.
The banners Jeffreys routinely produces for his business and walk-up clients are far more artful and design-oriented than they were even a few short years ago, he reports. Some 80 percent of his customers provide artwork, and many call ahead to ask about his preferences in the scale and dpi of the artwork they should present.
"I always have done design, but more and more people are bringing designed stuff to me," says Jeffreys, whose 19-year-old shop started as a FastSigns franchise, before a name infringement case led him to rechristen the shop under his own moniker. "They're less and less interested in a red-and-white banner that might say something like 'Grand Opening!' They want more than that—color backgrounds, characters, maybe a picture of something that gets incorporated into the banner."
It's a big change from the days when his business provided customers with cut vinyl banners. Jeffreys remembers reading an expert's prediction that eventually the only vinyl required of shops like his would be white vinyl.
"And that's happening," he says. "As more and more people get into this printing, people are simply leaving the cut vinyl. I can print a sophisticated printed banner much more inexpensively than I could produce a cut-vinyl banner."
He's still amazed by the contrast between digital and cut vinyl. When patrons bring artwork to him, he simply loads it in the printer, presses a button, and walks away. When the print is done, his workers place it on a sewing machine to hem the banner. Once grommets are added, the banner is finished and ready for delivery.
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