Roller banner artwork: sizes, setup and the cassette rule

A roller banner is the hardest-working item at any event: it stands all day, needs no wall, and packs into a car boot. It is also the product where artwork mistakes are most visible, because everything is printed at 2 metres tall.

The numbers that matter

Our standard roller banner prints at 800mm wide by 2000mm tall. Supply artwork at that size plus 3mm side bleed, and critically, add roughly 100mm of extra background at the bottom. That bottom strip winds into the cassette base and is never seen. Anything important placed there disappears.

Design top-down, like a newspaper

A banner is read at walking pace from three to five metres away:

• Top third: your headline and logo, at eye level (roughly 1400-1800mm from the floor). This is the only part guaranteed to be seen.
• Middle third: three to five short supporting points, never paragraphs.
• Bottom third: contact details and QR code, placed above the cassette zone.

Type sizes that survive distance

Headlines should be at least 100pt (about 35mm tall); body points at least 40pt. A useful test: zoom your design out until it is 10cm tall on screen. If you cannot read the headline, neither can anyone walking past the real thing.

Resolution for large format

You do not need 300 DPI at two metres tall, and your file would be enormous if you tried. 150 DPI at full size is the target and 100 DPI is acceptable; our artwork checker applies the correct large-format standard automatically when you pick the banner product.

Photography warning

A photo that fills the full banner width needs to be at least 4700px wide to hit 150 DPI. Phone photos usually survive; images saved from a website almost never do. When in doubt, run it through our AI preview and the resolution check will tell you straight away.