Banners & Hoardings
Banners and Hoardings
Ditch the shabby presentation. Showcase your message loud and clear.
- Banners and hoardings suited for outdoor purposes
- Resistant to rain, sunlight, and wind
- Any size: large hoardings are printed in panels and seamed together
- Stretchable flex material can be strung up or mounted on a frame
- Star flex prints at ₹40 per sq ft + GST
Shipping: Free delivery across India on orders of ₹3,000 + GST
Pricing: Star flex prints at ₹40 per sq ft + 18% GST
Detailed Description
Drive down any city road or highway and you are sure to come across huge printed hoardings. On the other hand, small banner prints displaying commercial advertisements are strung up on the electric poles, compound walls and even trees in our neighbourhood. Outdoor advertising has become ubiquitous and accessible to business organisations both big and small. This is because flex prints stand up to rain, sun and wind, and can be printed in very large sizes at a lower cost per square foot than most other outdoor media.
Large sized flex hoardings are extensively used by builders and property developers to advertise and inform customers about their construction projects. IT companies and cell phone service providers especially, plaster ad campaigns throughout the city to market their plans and services. Hospitals, hotels, clothing stores, white goods sellers and in fact just about every type of business can announce their presence from a large, attention grabbing hoarding, near their place of operations.
Hoardings are typically very large, with 30 feet width X 20 feet height being a standard size in Pune City. Moreover, you need to lease hoarding space (the huge metal structure on which the print gets erected) from ad agencies. But small businesses may have a limited ad budget which may not extend to large sized hoardings. In this case, they conduct their outdoor ads on a smaller format, flex printed banner. These four feet to ten feet large outdoor banner prints can then be strung up from walls or trees in their immediate neighbourhood.
Characteristics of an Outdoor Print
Prints for outdoor advertising, by virtue of their end application, need to satisfy the following conditions.
- Weather Resistance: The prints need to be waterproof. The inks should not run when exposed to the rains. Also the images should not fade when exposed to harsh sunlight.
- Strength: The print material should be strong enough to withstand the vagaries of the weather. In other words, a gust of wind should not tear the flex media apart.
- Cost: Outdoor prints are generally very large. Outdoor banner prints can go up to 8–10 feet in size, and hoardings are much bigger still. So the cost per square foot matters.
- Quality vs Cost: Banners hanging from a tree or an electric pole are generally not viewed up close. Hoardings on the sides of roads and highways are seen from hundreds of feet away. Moreover, these outdoor advertisements are given a fleeting glance from a moving vehicle. So outdoor prints need not be of an extremely high resolution.
A low or medium resolution print costs significantly less than, let us say, a photo print with a lot of detailing. And the human eye is not going to be able to register a slight coarseness in quality from long distances. So outdoor prints generally trade off a little bit of resolution in favour of cost.
Which Print Material for Which Occasion?
Flex is the material of choice for outdoor campaigns and one-time events, where the print has to face rain, sun and wind. Indoors, other materials often look better. For office décor and displays seen up close, a rigid sunboard print looks neat and flat. For a banner that is kinder to the environment than plastic flex, choose a cloth banner.
This short video walks you through the main poster materials and when to use each one.
What Is a Frontlit Flex Print?
Most outdoor prints are made of a material called ‘Solvent Printed Frontlit Flex’. If that sounds like a mouthful, here is what it means.
Material: Flex is a printable plastic roll. We stock flex in 3, 4 and 5 feet wide rolls; bigger prints are tiled and seamed together from panels. This plastic material is specially coated on the top to receive inkjet inks. Also, the plastic sheet is reinforced from beneath by a cloth-like liner. This liner is very much like the cloth-lined envelopes we see in stationery stores. The coated front surface of the flex roll can be imprinted with high resolution images on large wide format printing machines. And the back, cloth-lined layer of the flex media strengthens the print and prevents it from tearing up. Large sized hoardings are now able to withstand the strong winds in open spaces.
Light Source: Hoardings and outdoor banners are frequently called ‘frontlit flex prints’. This means that the sun is their source of light. This frontlit property works in favour of flex prints put up in open areas, because these areas receive a lot of sunshine for most of the Indian day. Some hoarding structures are also equipped with external sources like flood lights and huge arc lights. Keep in mind that, without such lights, frontlit flex prints are not visible at night; for a sign that glows after dark, see the backlit glow sign boards described further below.
Inks Used for Reproducing Outdoor Prints: Most printers print flex with low-end solvent inks, a type of ink used by many commercial wide format inkjet printers. At Orchid Digitals, we print our flex with premium-grade eco-solvent inks instead. These inks are robust, in the sense that they are able to withstand harsh elemental conditions: the prints resist rain, sunlight, dust and scratches, and the colours come out rich and vibrant.
This combination of weather resistant images and a media that can withstand strong winds makes flex the most suitable product for outdoor advertising applications.
Types of Flex Prints Available at Orchid Digitals
At Orchid Digitals, we print outdoor banners and hoardings on Star flex, and we offer black-back flex on request.
1. Star Flex: ‘Star’ is a well-known brand of flex media, and it is what we print our outdoor banners and hoardings on. At 300 GSM, it is a thick and strong media, so it holds up well in an outdoor environment. More importantly, Star flex has a superior coating on its front surface. This enables us to produce high resolution images on it, and the colours look extremely vibrant.
This makes Star flex a good fit for hoardings as well as for outdoor banners with high resolution images and detailed pictures.
2. Black-back Flex: This flex media addresses a problem peculiar to outdoor hoardings. Many times, the sun comes up from behind hoardings which are put up in open spaces. The sunlight then shines through the print media. This light, leaking from behind the white frontlit flex, makes it difficult to view the print on the front. A similar effect is seen when you hold up a printed page to a tube light. The letters become obscured when the light shines through.
To overcome this problem, we offer a media called ‘black-back’ flex. As the name suggests, the back side of the flex media is coated black, and this black coating stops back light from shining through. Black-back flex prints look vibrant even with the sun behind them. Black-back flex is available on request; price on request.
Stretchability – An Important Characteristic of Flex Prints
Flex media can be stretched. And this property is important. Flex prints may not stretch as much as an elastic band, but are nevertheless pliable for a few millimetres. This stretchability gains significance when flex prints have to be mounted on a frame. Most small banner prints hang loose and flap in the wind. But large prints especially need to be mounted on a metal structure. Backlit flex also goes into the making of backlit glow sign boards, where the media is stretched over a metal box.
And since flex media is pliable, we can tightly stretch the same on a metal frame. The end effect is like that of a well made flat looking bed or an animal skin stretched tightly on a drum. A flex print mounted on a frame can now look extremely taut and flat. Although the media is loose and very much like a bale of cloth, the framed print has the finish of a smooth and solid wall.
Finishing Options for Flex Banners and Hoardings
Flex prints are handed over to customers in a roll form. They then string them as banners or stretch and glue them on frames, as explained in the paragraph above. To make the installation at your end simpler, we also provide these finishing options, free of charge, on request:
- Eyelets for Banners: Loose banners need to be hung up from nails in a wall, or poles on the street. So we provide eyelets / grommets on the corners of the printed banner. These metallic eyelets create a tiny, but neat hole on the edge of the print. They now act as an eye through which you can pull a string / rope. Tying the outdoor banner print in place now becomes very easy.
- Edge Pocketing for Hoardings: Small eyelets won’t work for large hoardings. So here, we loop in the side edges of the print and paste it on the back side. Remember how we used to cover our school books in brown paper? This process is somewhat similar. The extra paper of the brown cover was folded back, inside the thick cardboard cover of the book. Similarly we fold back about three inches of the flex material, on all four sides. We then paste only the last one inch. This creates a hollow tunnel like space of about 2 inches on all four sides of the hoarding.
- Seamed Panels for Large Hoardings: Our flex rolls are 3, 4 and 5 feet wide. A print bigger than that in both directions is printed in panels, which are tiled and seamed together into one large print.
At the time of mounting, the fitters push ten feet long iron rods through this hollow space and tightly pull the rods (along with the looped flex) over the edge of the hoarding structure. When the hoarding is stretched sufficiently tightly from all sides, the print looks like a flat and finished wall.
Flex Prints on Metal Frames
The product described on this page is a loose print on flex media: we supply it, and you install it at your end. We don’t install banners or hoardings. If you’d like a print mounted on a lit frame, this is what we make:
- Backlit Glow Sign Board: Backlit prints, as the name suggests, are lit from within. We fabricate a metal box 6 to 8 inches deep. Bright LED tube lights are placed inside the box. Finally a specialised flex media, which allows light to pass through, is stretched on top of the box. The end effect is a brightly lit print, which glows and instantly attracts viewers. Please jump to this page for more details on backlit glow sign boards.
We no longer make frontlit flex shop boards on metal frames. For a shop sign without lights, see our printed weatherproof ACP boards; for lit lettering, see our backlit acrylic logo letters.
Flex or Cloth? Choosing the Right Banner
Flex is a plastic (PVC) media. It is the practical choice for hoardings and outdoor banners that have to face rain, sun and wind. If your banner will be seen up close or used indoors, or you would rather avoid plastic, a cloth banner is worth a look.
- Cloth banners in a slightly coarse fabric: ₹80 per sq ft + GST.
- Smooth, slightly silky cloth banners: ₹100 per sq ft + GST.
Both are printed on a cotton-polyester blended fabric and come with corner eyelets, free on request. Cloth banners suit indoor use and short-term outdoor use. Need flags instead? Our custom printed flags start at ₹120 per sq ft + GST.
Watch the difference in our one-minute video: flex vs cloth banners.
Flex for Events, Stages and Exhibitions
Flex also makes large event backdrops. For conferences, award nights and product launches, we stretch the print on a fabricated metal frame with supports. Our stage and event backdrops cost ₹150 per sq ft + GST, and we install them in Pune (installation is quoted separately).
For a backdrop you can fold, carry and reuse at many events, our collapsible 8 x 8 ft stage backdrop comes with a Star flex print with a black back, at ₹7,500 + GST. For a single display at a stall, a shop or a lobby, see our roll-up standees.
Pricing for Flex Prints
Given below is the price of frontlit Star flex prints for banners and hoardings at Orchid Digitals
Frontlit Star flex eco-solvent prints
Banners and hoardings in any size
- High resolution inkjet print
- Premium-grade eco-solvent inks for vibrant colours
- Printed on 300 GSM Star flex
- Thick media will not tear or rip easily
- Banners supplied rolled; large hoardings folded
- Print is waterproof
- Can be hung with strings or stretched on a metal frame
- Eyelets or edge pocketing free on request
- Above media is graded for indoor and outdoor use
- Product is resistant to dust, scratches and water
- Ideal for banners in events, parties, retail stores, etc.
- Example: 4 ft x 6 ft = 24 sq ft x ₹40 = ₹960 + GST (minimum order ₹3,000 + GST)
Please Note:
- The rate quoted above attracts 18% GST.
- The rate does not include installation. We supply the print ready to be strung up or mounted; we don’t install banners or hoardings.
- Rates are quoted per square foot. This means you first need to work out the total area of your job to arrive at the final cost. Each side is rounded up to the next whole foot, and the narrow side is billed at the full width of the flex roll it is printed on (our rolls are 3, 4 and 5 feet wide). For example, let us assume that you require a Star flex banner 5 feet wide and 15 feet high. In this case, the total cost of the job is calculated as follows…
5 feet width X 15 feet height = 75 sq ft X ₹40.00 (cost of print, as per the table above) = ₹3,000.00 + 18% GST
Prints bigger than our 5 feet rolls in both directions are printed in panels that are tiled and seamed together. A hoarding 30 feet wide and 20 feet high, for example, is 600 sq ft X ₹40.00 = ₹24,000.00 + 18% GST.
Minimum Order
- Our minimum order is ₹3,000 + GST.
- A single small banner, say 3 feet wide and 2 feet high, is billed as 3 X 3 feet (the narrow side at our 3 feet roll width): 9 sq ft X ₹40.00 = ₹360.00 + GST. Order several banners, or add other prints, to reach ₹3,000 + GST.
Turnaround
- Print jobs typically take 2–3 days after payment and artwork approval, plus delivery time. If the machines are free it can be faster, but we don’t promise an exact date.
Payment and Artwork
- Payment is 100% in advance; printing starts once payment is received.
- Send us your artwork; we check and prepare it so it prints perfectly. We don’t offer design as a service, but we can recommend designers in Pune.
Shipping and Delivery
- Order your flex banner and hoarding print from the comfort of your home; there is no need to look for a flex printer near you.
- Delivery is free in Pune and across India on orders of ₹3,000 + GST.
- Flex banners are delivered in a roll form.
- Flex hoardings, on the other hand, are too large to be rolled up. These prints have to be folded before we can send them out for delivery. Please note that folded prints will develop crease marks. These can be eliminated by tightly stretching the print on a metal frame.
- We don’t offer express or air delivery; urgent jobs can be collected from our shop in Pune.
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