Design Tips for Roller Banners
Best practices and tips for designing effective roller banners, focusing on visuals, text, and branding.
Our Top Tips For Designing A Pull Up Banner
- Keep It Simple: A cluttered banner is a distracting banner. Stick to one main message or idea. The design should be clean and straightforward, making it easy for viewers to understand your message at a glance.
- Use High-Quality Images: Images can make or break your banner. Use high-resolution images that are professionally shot. Blurry or pixelated images can make your brand look unprofessional. There are a wealth of premium stock photos online but if you are looking for some FREE, royalty free stock images we highly recommend the following sites: pexels |unsplash | freepik.
- Consistent Branding: Your roller banner should align with your brand’s identity. Use your brand’s colour scheme and logo consistently. This helps in reinforcing brand recognition.
- Clear and Readable Text:The text on your banner should be easy to read from a distance. Use large, bold fonts for headings and ensure there is a good contrast between the text and the background. A few places to find great fonts for your design are dafont | fontsquirrel | google fonts.
- Strategic Placement of Key Information: Place the most important information at eye level. The top third of the banner is the most visible part, so make sure your key messages are placed there.
- Effective Call to Action: Your banner should have a clear and compelling call to action (CTA). Whether it’s visiting a website, calling a phone number, or visiting a booth, make sure the CTA is noticeable and actionable.
- Consider the Setting: Think about where your banner will be displayed. The design may need to vary depending on whether it’s being used indoors, outdoors, in a well-lit or dimly lit area.
- Proofread: Nothing undermines professionalism like typos. Always proofread your text.

Where should I place my logo on my roller banner design?
Top logo – placement of your logo is simple. Pop it at the top! Eye catching and visible from a distance, it’s positioning let’s everyone know that the information to follow has been prepared by you for them. When designing a pop up banner, positioning your logo at the top of your design creates instant brand recognition and should tie in nicely to your other marketing collateral.

What is the best position for my key message in my design?
Key message at eye level – it’s important that your key message is at eye level and joins your logo in the top third of your design. Whether this is your slogan or a product image, it will be the key piece of information seen after your logo.

Where should my body text be placed on my roller banner design?
Text left to right – we all read left to right. Your potential customers are no different. So don’t make reading your banner hard for them. Disjointed and random layouts of text can cause confusion, and in turn your overall message or impact can be lost. Align your text, keep sentences short and layout text to be read left to right. Text should be placed in the middle third of your design.

How many types of font should I use?
Font styling – try not to use more than two different fonts in your design. Keep it simple for maximum readability. For more about fonts and font size to use on your roller banner design refer to our previous blog Fontastic Banners!

Image placement is important, where should it be placed on my design?
Imagery – if you are going to use imagery in your design, then make sure it is high resolution enough to be printed. See our artwork guidelines for more information. Make sure imagery does not obstruct any text. It can be tempting to place large point size text over the top of an image, however this often makes text hard to read. Text and/or imagery should be placed in the middle third of your design.

I have a lot of white space, what else can I add to my design?
When designing a pop up banner, white space is friendly – leave lots of white space around your text allowing it to breath and remain clear. It also allows our eyes resting time when reading, it aids comprehension.

What contact details should I include on my roller banner design?
Double check that website – be sure to point readers to another source for more information. This will be your bottom third. This can simply be your contact details including an email and telephone number, or simply your website. Double and triple check grammar and spelling. If your telephone number is printed incorrectly then your telephone is not going to be ringing after your exhibition or event.

Can I include social media icons on my roller banner design?
Be social – social media icons and hashtags can also be added but don’t overcrowd the space. We recommend you use between one and three pieces of contact information in total. This should sit in the bottom third of your design.

How much space to I need to leave at the bottom of my artwork?
Roll to the floor – remember that you need to allow space at the bottom of your banner for the printed graphic to be attached to the cassette hardware of your roller banner. This is outlined in on our templates and in our guidelines. Keep text and key information away from the bottom of your design. Remember, your customers are likely to be standing, therefore they are not likely to read information that is displayed too close to the floor.
Designing in Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a popular and widely used graphic design package. The software is designed mainly for photo manipulation but can be used to create roller banner designs and artwork for print.
To use Photoshop to create print ready artwork there are a few steps that should be followed to ensure that the file sent for printing is set up correctly.
Open Photoshop and create a new document – File – New. In the dialogue box that opens enter the size of the banner you are ordering in the width and height. For example our Economy and Budget roller banners will be width – 800mm and Height 2,100mm. IMPORTANT – ensure you select mm from the list and NOT pixels.
In the resolution box enter 300ppi – this will create a high resolution document suitable for print. It is worth noting that the higher the resolution the large the document size will become. If you find the document is too large at 300ppi this can be reduced, but do not go below 150ppi.
In the Color Mode box select CMYK Color – 8 bit.
Click OK and your new document is created ready for you to start your design work. Following the steps above creates a Roller Banner Template in Photoshop.
In the resolution box enter 300ppi – this will create a high resolution document suitable for print. It is worth noting that the higher the resolution the large the document size will become. If you find the document is too large at 300ppi this can be reduced, but do not go below 150ppi.
In the Color Mode box select CMYK Color – 8 bit.
Click OK and your new document is created ready for you to start your design work. Following the steps above creates a Roller Banner Template in Photoshop.
Let your creativity loose and design your roller banner. Ensure you use good quality and high resolution images. It is important to remember that 100mm at the bottom of your design is a bleed area and will not be visible on your printed roller banner. Treat this area as a bleed, so extend your background down into this area but do not put any text or logo’s into it.
Once your design work is complete you should flatten all your layers. This will help reduce the file-size and also helps reduce errors when we print the file. To do this click on “layer” and then “flatten image”
We require a PDF file for printing your banner. To create a PDF from your finished design in Photoshop, click on “file” then “save as”. Select Photoshop PDF as the format. Click Save. A “Save adobe PDF dialogue box” will then be displayed, select “high quality print” in the Adobe PDF preset box and click “Save PDF”The PDF created can now be uploaded for printing.
To help ensure your design and artwork is set up correctly please have a read through our Artwork Guidance page and also our Artwork FAQ page.
We also offer a banner design service – for just £15 our team of designers can do this all for you. Please see our roller banner design page for more information.
To help ensure your design and artwork is set up correctly please have a read through our Artwork Guidance page and also our Artwork FAQ page.
We also offer a banner design service – for just £15 our team of designers can do this all for you. Please see our roller banner design page for more information.