FAQs - What Are Double-Sided Banners?

DOUBLE-SIDED BANNERS

• What is an eSigns.com Double-Sided Banner? Would such a banner be made from two single-sided banners that have been attached to each other?

It would not. eSigns.com Double-Sided Banners are each a single piece of vinyl that has a design printed onto each side.

At present, we offer five banner types as double-sided (also referred to as 2-sided) banners:

Double-Sided Premium Banners - Use our heavy-duty 18 oz. Premium Vinyl, include hems and grommets, are available in sizes ranging from 2'×2' up to 10'×50' (inclusive), and have a Matte finish.
Indoor Pole Banners - Use our 12 oz. Smooth Blockout Vinyl, include pole pockets (3" flat-measure for 1.375"-diameter), are available in square and vertical sizes ranging from 2'×2' up to 10'×7 (Inclusive)', and have a Matte Finish. Indoor pole banners do not include hems or grommets.
Double-Sided Mesh Banners - Use our 12 oz. 90:10 Mesh vinyl, include hems and grommets, a partial block-out inner layer, and are available in horizontal, square, and vertical sizes ranging from 2'×2' up to 10'×50' (inclusive). This material's 90:10 value marks its visual area vs. airflow area ratio.
Outdoor Pole Banners - Also use our heavy-duty 18 oz. Premium Vinyl, include pole pockets (3" flat-measure for 1.375"-diameter), are available in sizes ranging from 2'×2' up to 9'×50' (inclusive), have grommets in each corner of the pole pocket hems, and have a Matte finish.
Window Banners - Use our 12 oz. Smooth Blockout Vinyl, include grommets, are available in a some what limited range of sizes ranging from 2'×2' up to 10'×7' (inclusive), and have a Matte finish. Window banners do not include hems or pole pockets.

• Could I get a Double-Sided banner printed with a different design on each side? If so, how is that done?

Certainly, these banners may be printed with the same design on each side, a slightly different design on each side (for signs where the only difference between sides are directional arrows), or with completely different designs on each side. The way to set up the sides will differ somewhat, depending upon which design method you'll be using.

Online Designs: When you select a 2-sided sign type and choose our online design tool, you'll find that the tool has a "tab" for each side of the sign. If your design will be one in which the only difference will be a directional arrow, creating both sides will be very easy. First, create your design on "Side 1" (we recommend saving your work every 5-10 minutes). Second, switch to "Side 2" and click the "Copy from Side 1" button to bring a copy of everything on side one over to side two. Third, click on your directional arrow to select it, and use the "Mirror" buttons as needed. Fourth, save the finished design.

Print-Ready Designs: When creating designs for a 2-sided sign type in a graphics program on your own computer, we recommend creating a separate file for each side of the sign. When using this design method, you'll select the file for side one on the file upload page and then click the Upload button. When this first file finishes uploading, the status for it will change to "Uploaded OK." Before clicking the Proof button, repeat the file selection and upload steps for your side two file. Once both file appear on the file upload page with "Uploaded OK", everything is ready for you to click on the Proof button to proceed
Multi-page files are not recommended, as they run the risk of having both sides of the sign being printed from whatever design is one 'page one' of the multi-page file.

• In the descriptions of the double-sided sign types given above, I see that the Indoor Pole Banner sizes are noted as being 'square and vertical.' What can I do if I would like to have one of those made as a horizontal (or landscape) sign?

To have either an Indoor Pole or Window Banner printed using an orientation that is not listed (such as 2'×4' for an Indoor Pole Banner), we highly recommend using the Upload Print-Ready Design method rather than the Online Design Tool. Such designs can be created in the online tool, but with considerably more work involved.

Print-Ready Designs - As an example, let's use the 4'×2' Indoor Pole Banner and Print-Ready design files. This starts as a sign that is four feet tall, two feet wide (products list by height first, width second), with pole pockets at the top and bottom of the sign. As the first step we recommend building your side one and side two designs in your preferred graphics program as horizontal files (24" high, 48" wide, in RGB colors, at a resolution of 150 DPI).

Before saving each design for the final time on your computer, rotate the design 90° so that it becomes a vertical file (in this example, 48" tall × 24" wide).

• Pole Pocket Note - With the files ready, you would select the 4'×2' Indoor Pole Banner, and choose the Upload Print-Ready Design option. Please note that the normal pole pockets will be on the 2' sides, which would make them the left and right sides of the sign once it is mounted as a horizontal sign of 2'×4'. If you would like to have pole pockets on the top and bottom of the finished sign (the 4' sides of this example), you will have to include instructions for that in the Notes box on the file upload page. That instruction should be something along the lines of:

"Please finish with the pole pockets on the 4' sides, so that the sign will be 2'×4' with top & bottom pole pockets."

Online Designs - Let's keep the same size as an example, so our starting size in the online tool is the 4'×2' Indoor Pole Banner. You'll not be able to rotate the sign in the tool, so you'll have to rotate all of the sign content instead using the Mirror buttons. If one of the design tool's background images is used, we recommend selecting one of the "orientation-neutral" backgrounds. By orientation-neutral, we mean images that aren't obviously vertical:

The darker background above is one that is intended as a vertical background, and the brighter background is one that can easily be used as a background for either a vertical or a horizontal sign.

Once the design is complete and saved, the next step will be to add it to your shopping and enter any special instructions that might be needed. Special instructions may be added to online designs using the "Add/Edit" Special Instructions link located just under the thumbnail image of the design in your shopping cart. For placing the pole pockets on the 4'-sides, an instruction like the one given above should be entered.