Designing Banners with Illustrator question

[wheelhot]

Hello everyone, well I have a question to ask, I am currently designing a poster and banner for a college event, the problem is, Illustrator seem to have a maximum artwork size limit.

I'm designing 2 same banners but both are of different size, one is 3m*6m and the other is 4m*8m, so as I mentioned earlier, I can't input these values inside illustrator cause it end up being too huge. So what are my solutions?

And how many dpi should the banner be printed? The company I am likely giving to print my banner offer 720*720 dpi, 720*1440 dpi and 1440*1440 dpi?

Thanks

P.S: I would like to see my banner be printed the same way as how I designed it, a lot of time I saw banners look awful and part of the reason that I think was the banner wasn't design at the correct dimensions beforehand.

P.S.S: Can the mods please delete the same post found in the web design and development, I posted the thread at the wrong place accidently, sorry.

 

[mooblie]

Can you not prepare it as a vector (not bit-mapped) piece of artwork, at maybe 1/8th (linear) actual size? Then it should scale up to print without any loss of resolution.

 

[Jaffa Cake]

Generally, I'd produce banner artwork at 1/4 actual size – I think the best thing you can do though is speak to your supplier and see what their requirements are. They can advise you on exactly what they need to output your intended design properly.

 

[wheelhot]

Thanks for the response guys and maybe gals, I guess preparing it as vector artwork meaning saving it as .ai?

Thanks for the tip also, I'll do it at the size you guys suggested

 

[Jaffa Cake]

Saving it as an EPS results in a vector file as well – although if there are bitmap files in there (TIFFs or JPEGs, for example) those won't be converted into vectors, they'll stay as they are.

Another thing to do with your file – when it's ready to go convert any text into outlines, this gets around any potential font issues. Of course, keep an editable version on your computer in case you need to alter any text.

 

[FourCandles]

Hello everyone, well I have a question to ask, I am currently designing a poster and banner for a college event, the problem is, Illustrator seem to have a maximum artwork size limit.

I'm designing 2 same banners but both are of different size, one is 3m*6m and the other is 4m*8m, so as I mentioned earlier, I can't input these values inside illustrator cause it end up being too huge. So what are my solutions?

And how many dpi should the banner be printed? The company I am likely giving to print my banner offer 720*720 dpi, 720*1440 dpi and 1440*1440 dpi?

Thanks

P.S: I would like to see my banner be printed the same way as how I designed it, a lot of time I saw banners look awful and part of the reason that I think was the banner wasn't design at the correct dimensions beforehand.

P.S.S: Can the mods please delete the same post found in the web design and development, I posted the thread at the wrong place accidently, sorry.

Screen ruling for banners this size will likely be quite low - ask your suppliers as others have said, and bear in mind that you won't be wanting to view a 8m banner from a foot away, more like a few metres. At that distance a screen ruling of say 60lpi will look just as good as a typical 170lpi screen on a magazine at held arms' length. If you have a large billboard nearby that's right up close to the pavement, get up close and see how big the dots are!

Most banner/billboard printers will want artwork as 1/4 or 1/2 size - do check with your supplier first as per above posts.

 

[Kwill]

Screen ruling for banners this size will likely be quite low... say 60lpi will look just as good as a typical 170lpi screen... do check with your supplier first.

You're almost there buddy. You might be thinking of silkscreen printing. For digital printing there technically is no screen ruling. The resolution a printer uses determines how many imperceptible dots create the nearly visible stochastic dots. Ink from digital printers making up the (splatter) dots is volumetrically measured in picoliters (trillionths of a liter). Printer manufacturers try to distinguish themselves in the 1.5 to 4 picoliter range. Who really can see the difference without a microscope?

Imagesetters, as an example (when they were popular), could use 2400 dpi to create a 300 lpi dot pattern. Today, a printer that outputs at 1200, 2400, 4800, or higher does not require the image to match its resolution. Poster images are generally fine between 100 ppi and 240 ppi. When working to scale with raster images, a half-size photo should be 200 ppi to 540 ppi. The vector aspects of the poster, however are rendered at the printer's actual ultra high resolution.

 

[wheelhot]

wow thanks for the tips, but erm. What is lpi? I never heard of it

 

[FourCandles]

wow thanks for the tips, but erm. What is lpi? I never heard of it

Lines per inch. Used to describe the "resolution" of the screens used for silk screen printing, and a term carried over to litho printing.

See Kwill's more detailed and accurate post above for digital printing and how dpi relates to lpi. Sorry if I've confused things.

 

[design-is]

Just to add to the already extensive advice, outputting as a high res, print ready (crops and bleed etc.) PDF will also preserve any vector artwork and will allow you a certain amount of control over other aspects such as image compression and down/upsampling.

But as others have already said, it's best to check how your printer wants you to supply & prepare files.

 

[wheelhot]

aaah okay okay, thanks I'm still kinda new at sending my work for printing

Oh, I didn't know PDF preserve any vector artwork. No-wonder when I emailed the company they ask me to give them in pdf.

 

[flrazor]

Oh, I didn't know PDF preserve any vector artwork. No-wonder when I emailed the company they ask me to give them in pdf.

You're going to find a lot of people gladly take PDF, as a lot of print technology is built around it or specifically set up to use it internally for processing. I've worked with people that have to convert anything to PDF for their RIPs to process the job.

As always, it never hurts to ask your printer what they would like ahead of time. Saves you and them a lot of hassle and time and you'll get the best results for it.