How to Design a Roller Banner That Actually Gets Noticed

A roller banner gives you a lot of space to work with, but that doesn’t mean you need to fill every inch of it.

Whether it’s going to an exhibition, sitting in a reception area or travelling around with your sales team, a good roller banner should be easy to understand without somebody having to stop and study it.

That usually means keeping the design simpler than you first think.

Roller banners are also commonly called pull-up banners, but whichever name you use, the same design principles apply. Decide what you want someone to notice first, make that message easy to see and let the rest of the artwork support it.

If you’re still deciding which format will work best, our Roller Banner Size Guide covers standard UK dimensions and when each option makes sense

Start with one clear message

One of the easiest mistakes to make with roller banner design is treating the space like a giant leaflet.

A leaflet is something somebody can pick up and read. A banner is normally being seen while someone is walking past, standing across a room or talking to somebody else at the same time.

Trying to include every service, phone number, social account and paragraph of company information usually makes the important parts harder to spot.

Before you start designing, ask yourself what you want somebody to know after looking at the banner for a few seconds.

It might be what your business does, a new product you’re launching or simply your company name and a short message.

Once you’ve got that, build the rest of the design around it.

Keep the important bits towards the top

Your logo and main message should normally sit towards the top half of the banner.

There’s a practical reason for this. At an exhibition, the bottom part can easily disappear behind a table, display unit, chair or a group of people standing in front of it.

The same can happen in shops and reception areas where furniture gets moved around after the banner has been designed.

If your most important message is sitting right at the bottom, there’s a good chance somebody won’t see it at all.

That doesn’t mean the lower half has to be empty. It’s still useful space for supporting information, contact details or a QR code. Just don’t put the one thing you really want people to notice down there.

Think about how far away it will be seen

A banner sitting next to a reception desk has a very different job to one sitting across a busy exhibition hall.

If people will mainly see it from several metres away, keep the headline large and the message short. Small text might look perfectly readable while you’re designing it on screen, but that doesn’t mean it will work when the banner is standing on the other side of a room.

Try zooming out while you work. If the main message starts disappearing as soon as the artwork gets smaller on your screen, it may be doing the same thing when somebody sees the finished banner from a distance.

You can include more detail further down the design, but there should always be something that works at first glance.

Give the design some room to breathe

You don’t need to use every available space.

Leaving some room around your logo, headline and images can actually make them stand out more.

If everything is competing for attention, nothing really wins.

This is particularly noticeable on roller banners because the design is tall and narrow. Trying to squeeze lots of separate blocks across the width can quickly make the artwork feel cramped.

A simple layout with a clear order usually works better. Your eye should naturally move from the logo or headline into the rest of the information rather than jumping around trying to work out where to start.

The same goes for fonts. You rarely need lots of different styles. One or two that work well together will normally give you a much cleaner result.

Use images that are good enough for the finished size

A photograph can look great on a laptop and still look disappointing once it’s enlarged onto a roller banner.

The finished graphic is close to two metres tall, so small images downloaded from a website or social media can quickly start to show their limitations.

Where possible, use the original high-resolution image rather than a compressed copy.

It’s also worth being careful when cropping. Enlarging a small part of an image to fill most of the banner puts even more pressure on the resolution.

If you’re unsure whether an image will reproduce well at full size, it’s much easier to check before the banner goes to print than afterwards.

Don’t forget about contrast

Your message needs to be easy to read against the background.

Light grey text over a slightly darker grey photograph might look stylish when you’re sitting close to a monitor, but it can disappear once the banner is viewed from across a room.

The same applies to busy photographs. If the image already contains lots of detail, placing a large amount of text directly over it can make both harder to see.

You don’t necessarily need huge areas of solid colour, but there should be enough contrast between the background and anything somebody needs to read.

It’s worth checking your design at different sizes before you finish. If a headline is difficult to pick out when you zoom out, look at the contrast before immediately making the type bigger.

Be sensible with QR codes

QR codes can work really well on roller banners, particularly if you want somebody to visit a website, download something or find out more without adding lots of extra information to the artwork.

Just don’t tuck one into a corner as an afterthought.

Give it some clear space around the outside and make sure there is plenty of contrast between the code and its background. Putting it over a photograph or pattern can make it harder to scan.

Think about where it sits too. A QR code close to floor level isn’t particularly convenient if somebody has to crouch down to use it.

Most importantly, test it.

Open the finished artwork on screen and try scanning the code from different distances. If you can print a proof at a smaller scale, test it there too.

Design for the place it’s actually going

It sounds obvious, but it’s easy to forget about the surroundings while you’re concentrating on the artwork.

A roller banner for a trade show may be competing with dozens of other displays, overhead signs, screens and people. In that environment, a straightforward design and strong headline usually have a better chance of being noticed.

A pull-up banner used in a quiet reception area can work differently. People may be standing nearby for longer, so you have more opportunity to include supporting information.

You should also think about what else will be around the banner.

If it’s going behind an exhibition table covered with brochures and products, design with that in mind. If several banners will sit next to each other, make sure the colours, type and overall style feel connected rather than looking like completely separate pieces.

Check the artwork at full size before you send it

Once you’re happy with the design, give it one final check before uploading it for print.

Look at spelling, phone numbers, website addresses and dates. Check that logos are sharp and images still look good when viewed at full size.

Make sure anything important hasn’t ended up too close to the bottom of the banner and take another look at how the design reads from top to bottom.

If you’re using one of our artwork templates, check that the design is set up to the correct size and that any required bleed has been included before exporting your final file.

It’s also worth stepping away from it for a little while before doing the final check. After staring at the same design for an hour, it becomes surprisingly easy to read what you expect to see rather than what is actually there.

A good roller banner doesn’t need to shout

The best roller banner designs are often the ones that know when to stop.

You need enough information for somebody to understand the message, but not so much that they have to work for it.

Keep the important information high up, use images that will hold up at full size and think about how far away the banner will actually be seen.

If you’re planning your next display, you can also take a look at our printed banner stands to see the different sizes and styles available.