Outdoor signs may be used in real estate, marketing, yard sales, election campaigns etc. They can be printed on vinyl, flute-board or any other surface.

View outdoor signs examples at:

• Various FSBO outdoor signs at zetaprints.com
• Various REMAX real estate yard signs at zetprints.com
• A bunch of Century21 yard signs at zetaprints.com

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Things to consider:

• Size – large enough to be viewed from a distance.
• Bleed – will the printed media be trimmed or wrapped around the board
• Trimming -is it trimmed to size or cut roughly and wrapped around the board
• Resolution – likely to require only low to medium resolution
• Fonts – will it be readable from where people look at it at the speed they move

Size

The most common are shown in the table below. A sign printer will be happy to make a sign of any size, but the price may be considerably higher if the size is not standard because there is more manual involved in measuring and cutting.

US Standard outdoor sign sizes
Dimensions (mm)	Dimensions (in)
2.438,4 x 1.219,2	96″ x 48″
1.219,2 x 1.219,2	48″ x 48″
1.219,2 x 914,4	48″ x 36″
1.219,2 x 609,6	48″ x 24″
914,4 x 609,6	36″ x 24″
685,8 x 457,2	27″ x 18″
609,6 x 609,6	24 x 24
609,6 x 457,2	24 x 18
304,8 x 609,6	12 x 24
304,8 x 457,2	12 x 18
Other common outdoor sign sizes
Dimensions (mm)	Dimensions (in)
1250 x 3000	49,213 x 118,11
1000 x 3000	39,37 x 118,11
1000 x 2500	39,37 x 98,425
1800 x 1200	70,866 x 47,244
2000 x 800	78,74 x 31,496
1800 x 620	70,866 x 24,409
1200 x 900	47,244 x 35,433
1200 x 800	47,244 x 31,496
1200 x 600	47,244 x 23,622
1000 x 900	39,37 x 35,433
1000 x 800	39,37 x 31,496
1000 x 600	39,37 x 23,622
900 x 900	35,433 x 35,433
900 x 800	35,433 x 31,496
900 x 600	35,433 x 23,622
800 x 800	31,496 x 31,496
800 x 500	31,496 x 19,685
600 x 600	23,622 x 23,622
594 × 841 (A1 size)	23.4 × 33.1 (A1 size)

View all outdoor sign sizes.

Bleed area

Ask how the sign will be constructed. Most likely it will be printed on a vinyl sheet using ink-jet and glued to a sheet of plastic, wood or metal. If your design contains colored areas to the very edge it is wise to include up to 3cm of bleed or more for large signs.

Color space

Ink-jet process uses CMYK + additional colors. Most professional ink-jet printers can print outside the usual CMYK gamut getting closer to RGB, so leaving RGB images may be OK if you know who and how will print it. Otherwise stick to CMYK + spots as the safe option.

Image quality

Outdoor signs are meant to be viewed from a large distance, so high resolution images are not absolutely necessary. 72 DPI or more will do just fine. Read more about image quality here.

Content

The most common features of a web-to-print outdoor sign template are:

• Large header or caption text to grab attention
• Main or background image
• Additional smaller images
• Fine print
• Multiline text fields for the content or description.
• Text fields for the URL, email or other contact details
• Replaceable images for photos or the company logo (if its a corporate design).

Other useful articles on this subject

You can view more guides and articles about designing business cards at:

• Link

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