Vinyl banners as listed in the International Sign Association guide are a low cost form of outdoor advertising. Most banners are now digitally printed on large format inkjet printers which are capable of printing a full color outdoor billboard on a single piece of material.

Materials

The most commonly used material is a heavy weight vinyl technically know as PVC. The weights of the different banner substrates range from as light as 9 ounces to as heavy as 22 ounces per square yard, and may be double- or single-sided. Grommets can also be added in order to facilitate hanging of the banner. Large banners (which can be so large that they cover the side of a building) are printed on a special mesh material so that the wind can pass through them.

Production

There are various types of vinyl banner

• Digitally printed banners: printed with aqueous (water based), semi-solvent and solvent based inks, which in some printers may be UV-curable to provide better resistance to the weather. Large format inkjet printers are usually used, but very large banners may be produced using computer-controlled jets to spray the ink directly onto the banner material. Some of the faster wide format inkjet printers are capable of printing up to 1600 square feet per hour. These are manufactured by such companies as Mimaki, Jetta, Xerox, Roland, Kodak, Encad, Colorspan and Hewlett-Packard.
• Vinyl lettered banners: produced by applying individual elements cut from self-adhesive vinyl by a computer-driven vinyl cutter.
• Screenprinted: produced using screenprinting, in which different colors are laid down one at a time using stencils.  

Applications

Vinyl banners have many uses and applications. They are most often used to promote a company's logo, a special promotion, event, team or school. Since vinyl is a very flexible as well as portable material you can see vinyl banners just about anywhere. Vinyl banners are commonly seen as billboards, table banners, trade show banners, building banners, street banners as well as stadium flags.

Wide-format printers are generally accepted to be any printer with a print width between 17" and 100". Printers over the 100" mark may be called Super-Wide or Grand format. Wide format printers are used to print banners, posters and general signage and in some cases may be more economical than short-run methods such as screenprinting. Wide format printers generally use a roll of print material rather than individual sheets and may incorporate hot-air dryers to prevent prints from sticking to themselves as they are produced.

Technologies

• Aqueous: thermal or piezo inkjet printers using water-based inks. Similar in general principle to desktop inkjet printers. Finished prints must be laminated to protect them if they are to be used outdoors. Various materials are available, including canvases, banners, metallized plastic and cloth.
• Solvent: piezo inkjet printers whose inks are solvent-based. The resulting prints are waterproof. May be used to print directly on to vinyl.
• Dye sublimation: inks are diffused into the special print media to produce continuous-tone prints of photographic quality.
• Pen/plotter: a pen or pens are used to literally draw on the print substrate. Mainly used for producing CAD drawings, now being superseded by wide-format inkjets. 

Montreal Printing Inc. also operates under these names: