Even with the advent of screens, monitors, and even online advertisement there’s no denying that printing remains a large part of our lives and especially a large part of our marketing campaigns.
And it makes sense, a large banner is much easier to produce than a giant screen, and it’s also just much more cost-efficient in general.
But the presence of large banners and ads in shopping malls and the streets does raise one question. Where do they even come from? Are there giant printers hidden from our sight? Do they combine multiple smaller prints to pull it off? Is there another secret to it?
Overall it’s more straightforward than you might assume at first, but for now, what you need to know is that we call this practice Large Format Printing and today we’ll try to give you the 101 on it so you’ll have no more questions and doubts remaining.
What is large format printing?
Large format printing refers to any sort of printing process done in a size above the standard ones. So whether you are dealing with text, pictures, flat colors, or a combination of all of them, any print above the usual measurements is considered large printing.
To put it into more precise numbers most home printers can’t fit pages wider than A4 Paper, which measures 210 x 297 mm. So in that sense, any single print above that would qualify as large format printing.
A simple example of large format printing would be a traditional newspaper, after all, if you spread a single page fully it quite simply wouldn’t fit in on your home printer. That’s the general concept behind large format printing, which is why we said it was a more straightforward concept than it appeared at first.
What is large format printing used for?
Large format printing is very closely related to marketing in general, which means most companies and individuals who order these prints will use them for business purposes. And it all honestly makes a lot of sense, after all when it comes to grabbing attention on the street size does matter, as smaller prints quite simply wouldn’t be visible. Can you imagine trying to pay attention to an A3-sized ad on the side of the road while driving? It’s just impossible any way you spin it.
Large format printing developed naturally as a way to deal with this limitation, if companies needed larger ads, then the only reasonable solution was to make larger prints. After all, the basic principle of printing remains the same whether you print a sticker or an entire football field. What will change ultimately is just the cost, the required materials, and of course the printer itself.
How are these pieces printed?
Generally speaking when it comes to any new invention the best solution is the simplest one, so if you were thinking that large scale printing relies on large printers, you are in fact correct.
Large-format printers are, in short, larger printers. They work under the same principles and mechanisms and in broad terms offer the same results. In fact, the similarities are so many that many home printer brands also offer large print models, a good example of this being HP.
So in short they are just bigger printers that take bigger paper or plastic and that have a much wider work surface compared to home models. But the same restrictions apply, and the only way to do large format printing is quite simply to have a large enough printer to load the required material on.
How can I do a large format printing of my own?
Option one is of course to get a large format printer and start doing your projects. But before you go around shopping on Amazon or your favorite retailer keep in mind that the cost is huge. Large format printers are massive, to begin with, they consume ink at an incredible pace, and in general, they are a very expensive investment.
So most companies that require large format printing usually prefer to work with companies that specialize in it rather than bear the cost on their own. The good news is that as we’ve said so far, large format printing is relatively common and still heavily in demand, so you shouldn’t have any issues finding large format printing near me. It all comes down to looking around a bit and understanding that it’s a print like any other.
