Designing for a Billboard
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- lind
Has anybody designed for a billboard? You know those huge billboards you see as you drive down the street? I need to get design specs on how to design them. Also info on any printer in the Los Angeles area that deals with billboard production would be greatly appreciated.
- scarabin0
i hear they're often designed at over a gig of resolution
like 1,000+ instead of 72 or 300
- lind0
Thanks!
- Mimio0
Actually they're designed at very low resolutions. Anywhere from 25-80 d.p.i.
- JazX0
sounds cool, I guess you would have to take into consideration the material. It has to be glued on right?
- JazX0
Hmmm, that low huh? Maybe it really does have to do with the material it's printed on.
- Mimio0
It has to do with the fact that people are viewing billboards from 80 -200 ft away. At those distances they appear very crisp.
- Mimio0
Most billboards are either 55 or 70 dpi the other resolutions are used pretty for special circumstances.
- peteski0
worked as a printer for a long time. when we printed halftone four color stuff for billboards, the dots were the size of dimes.
- Blofeldt0
what? All the billboards i've done have to have the images at about 600dpi, each image is about 60MB. You normally design at 1:10 ration not actually size, they then blow it up. I never had to worry about the paper or glue before.
Usually termed 48 sheets or 6 sheets or whatever size they are.
Doing one right now actually.
- tomkat0
low res seems much more logical to me , too..
- Blofeldt0
i don't understand. I lay the artwork out in Illustrator and place the large image file (60MB at least). The save as an eps. Do the printers then change the res? I've done a few of these and never given it a second thought. I was initally given m guidlines by JC Decaux.
- sexypixel0
the ones in the underground here in sydney look like the have a very high res up close. not much pointelisation
- tomkat0
if you have 600 dpi and blow it up at 1:10 ratio ..
wouldn't you get 60 dpi then..?
- JazX0
I would also think the dpi would be super high. I'm confused.
- tomkat0
a guy at a photoprint/plot store once said to me "the further you step away from a picture, the less dpi you will need."
that sounds logical.. i never questioned it.
:o?
- skeptical0
i was working on 35 dpi and it looks quite fine.
there is no need to make billboard above 72 dpi."the further you step away from a picture, the less dpi you will need."
...true
- Bio0
allow me to jump in here for a minute. i have to design billboards quite often.
the lowest res you will find on a billboard is 18 dpi and from a distance of 100ft, it will look just fine.
(though you will probably wind up more in the 36dpi range once printed)generally what we do here is design 1:12 at 300 dpi because if it looks perfect printed on tabloid paper, then it will look fine from billboard distances. (not sure if that made sense how i said it but. . . for the most part, this is true)
as for the high res thing, keep in mind that as you get further from something, you can see less and less detail. so if you printed the thing at 300 dpi at fullsize, it would make no differece to your eye at 100 ft. so 18dpi and 300dpi will appear to be the same (for the most part).
you can find guides on this sor tof stuff. like how tall to mke your letters if your board is (insert number) far away.
anyway, if you get stuck and need some help/info, you're welcome to shoot me an email and i'll hook you up with some material.
=)
- monkeyshine0
yeah, what Bio said. I just gave Viacom a billboard file yesterday (100mb file!) that was 7"x24" at 600dpi...which is equiv of 14"x48" at 300dpi.
- Bio0
hot monkey!
how'd that turn out?i meant to tell you that i really liked the "santa fell of the sleigh again" version. that shit cracked me up. =D
which version did you wind up using?