A poster is a single printed sheet made to be read at a glance from a couple of metres away. We print them at Ravenhall on satin, matte, gloss or waterproof synthetic stock, trimmed square and packed flat or rolled.
Poster printing is large-format printing onto sheet stock, most often paper, at A-series sizes running from A3 (297 × 420 mm) up to A0 (841 × 1189 mm). The stock is usually 170gsm or heavier so the sheet holds itself up in a frame instead of buckling. Ink sits on the surface, the sheet gets trimmed square, and that is the whole product. No frame, no mounting, unless you ask for one.
Made by Melbourne Trade Signs, a large-format print and signage company on Unit 6/43 Orbis Drive, Ravenhall VIC 3023, in Melbourne’s west. Printed in-house and installed Australia-wide. Phone 0415 743 691.
Paper is cheap, prints beautifully and has almost no weather resistance. That is the trade-off. Indoors, behind glass or in a snap frame, a good satin poster holds its colour for years. Put the same sheet in a west-facing shop window and the magentas start going soft inside a few months. Outdoors, or anywhere it might get splashed, we print on synthetic stock instead and the whole conversation changes.
Everything runs through our workshop on Orbis Drive in Ravenhall. Stock, print, trim and packing, with nobody in the middle adding a margin. There is no minimum, so one A1 for a foyer is a real order, and two hundred A2s for a retail network go through in a single pass at one colour setting. Where posters are going into frames or light boxes across several sites, our crews can fit them.
A poster is defined by its stock more than anything else. Weight decides whether it hangs flat, surface decides how it reads under lighting, and material decides whether water is a problem.
| Stock | Weight | Surface | Where it belongs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Satin poster paper | 170 gsm | Low sheen, slight tooth | The default. Frames, walls, most retail and venue posters |
| Matte poster paper | 170 gsm | No reflection at all | Bright rooms, glazed frames, anything read up close |
| Gloss photo stock | 200 gsm | High shine, deep blacks | Food, product and photographic imagery |
| Heavyweight art stock | 250–300 gsm | Matte, card-like body | Posters hung unframed, or handled again and again |
| Synthetic poster stock | 200 micron | Matte white polypropylene | Windows, wet areas, humid rooms, short outdoor runs |
| Blockout poster paper | 200 gsm | Grey barrier core | Double-sided window posters with no show-through |
| Self-adhesive poster | 100 micron film | Matte or gloss face | Sticking straight onto a wall or panel with no frame |
A-series halves at each step, so one A1 is exactly two A2s and artwork scales between them cleanly. If you are ordering for frames, measure the visible aperture rather than trusting the label. Plenty sold as A1 are not.
Most poster decisions come down to two questions: what the sheet has to survive, and whether it is going into a frame. Here is what gets asked for and when each is worth paying for.
170gsm with a low sheen, and the stock most poster work runs on. It keeps colour saturation better than matte without throwing glare back under downlights or shop lighting. If there is no strong reason to pick something else, this is the sensible default and the cheapest of the three finishes.
A completely flat surface with no reflection. The right call for anything going behind glass, anything lit hard from the front, and anything read from less than a metre away. Solid blacks look marginally less deep than they do on gloss, which almost nobody notices in a real room.
High shine, deep blacks and the strongest colour of the three surfaces. It suits food photography, cosmetics and anything where the image carries the message. The catch is glare. Under a downlight or in a sunlit window a gloss poster can be unreadable from the wrong angle.
A 200 micron polypropylene sheet instead of paper. It does not absorb water, does not tear along a fold and will not go wavy in a humid room. We use it for window posters, gym and pool areas, cool rooms, and short outdoor stints where paper would be pulp by Sunday.
A clear film bonded over the printed face, matte or gloss. It resists scuffing, makes the poster wipeable and slows fading a little. Worth it on anything the public handles or anything living in a busy corridor. Laminate also stiffens the sheet, which helps a big poster hang flat.
Posters mount to 5mm foamboard for indoor display, or to 3mm ACM where a panel has to stay flat for years and might see weather. Mounting turns a poster into a rigid sign that stands in a frame, sits on an easel or screws to a wall, and it ends the curling problem permanently.
Snap frames have hinged aluminium edges that flip open so a poster swaps in seconds without the frame leaving the wall. Light boxes need backlit film rather than paper, printed at a reduced density so the image reads correctly once there is light coming through it rather than bouncing off.
When the same poster goes to forty stores we print the run in one pass, so every site opens the box to the same colour. Then we pack per store with the store name on the outside. Sizes can vary between sites inside one order without each one being repriced.
Seasonal campaign posters going out to every store on the same date, usually A1 and A2 into existing frames. The thing that matters here is not the print, it is that store 3 and store 34 get the same red. One print run in one building handles that. We pack per site, label the outside of each pack, and hold the file so the reprint in six months matches.
Gig posters, event announcements and drinks promotions in short runs with a short shelf life. Usually A2 on satin, often twenty or thirty of them, sometimes six. No minimum means a small venue can order what it actually needs rather than a box of two hundred that dates in a fortnight. Waterproof stock is worth it for anything going on an outdoor noticeboard.
Exhibition panels, information posters, event programmes and enrolment campaigns. Galleries tend to want matte A0 and A1 so gallery lighting does not bounce off the sheet, often mounted to foamboard and hung directly. Councils order the same artwork at three sizes for different frame types around a precinct. All of it is straightforward work that just has to be accurate.
Wall posters that stay up for a year or more: safety procedures, class timetables, service lists and induction material. Laminated or synthetic stock earns its place here, because these get touched, re-pinned and wiped down rather than admired. A humid gym or pool corridor will ripple ordinary paper within weeks, which is why we push synthetic stock for anything sitting near water, steam or a roller door.
Posters get looked at closer than most signage, so artwork quality shows. A vector logo, live text and a decent source image will carry a poster at any size we print.
None of that is a barrier to ordering. Send the logo, the words and a rough idea of the layout. We build the file, send a proof, and adjust it until it is right. Setup is part of the job.
Genuinely urgent? Posters are the most common same day printing job we run — call before you panic. Posters are among the quickest things we produce, because printing and trimming happen a few metres apart in the same building. Give us the date they need to be on the wall and we will tell you honestly whether it works. Small quantities get collected from Ravenhall, larger runs go out flat in board-backed packs or rolled in tubes, metro and regional Victoria, with freight interstate.
A0 is 841 × 1189 mm, which is about 1 square metre of printed area.
The rest of the series halves from there: A1 is 594 × 841 mm, A2 is 420 × 594 mm and A3 is 297 × 420 mm. Because each size is exactly half the one above, artwork built for one A-size enlarges to any other without the proportions changing. A0 is the largest we would call a poster; past that it becomes a wall graphic or a banner.
170gsm is the right weight for the great majority of posters, and it is what we run unless you ask otherwise.
Lighter stock than that ripples in a frame and shows through where the artwork is dark. Heavier stock, 250 to 300gsm, is worth it if the poster hangs unframed, gets handled by staff or the public, or needs to feel substantial in a gallery or showroom setting. Weight has no effect on colour, only on body and durability.
Yes, eventually, and direct sun is what decides how fast. A window poster on a north or west aspect in Melbourne can start losing its reds and magentas within three to six months.
A poster in a frame inside the same shop, away from the glass, will still look right after a couple of years. If a window poster has to hold up for a season or more, ask for laminate or synthetic stock, both of which slow it down noticeably without stopping it altogether.
Pick matte if the poster goes behind glass or is read up close, gloss if the image is photographic and the lighting is controlled, and satin for everything else.
Glare is the deciding factor most of the time. Gloss under a downlight or in a sunlit window produces hot spots that make sections of the poster unreadable from the wrong angle. Matte kills that entirely. Satin sits in between and is why it is our standard.
Yes, on synthetic stock rather than paper. A 200 micron polypropylene sheet is waterproof, does not tear easily and holds up to a few months outside depending on sun and how it is fixed.
For anything longer than a season outdoors, a poster is the wrong product. A printed Corflute panel or a vinyl banner will cost less over its life and will not need replacing after the first serious storm. We will say so when you ask, rather than selling you three rounds of reprints.
Screens emit light and paper reflects it, so a bright monitor will always flatter an image compared to a printed sheet.
Deep shadow areas and saturated blues suffer most in the conversion from RGB to CMYK. If colour is critical, tell us before we print and we will run a small section as a proof on the actual stock. That takes a day and costs a fraction of reprinting a hundred posters that are not quite right.
Where a poster needs to be rigid. We mount printed sheets to 5mm foam board for indoor display, easels and pop-up retail, trimmed to the poster edge.
See the detail →The free-standing version of the same idea. A 2 metre graphic that rolls into its own base, for foyers and events where nothing can be fixed to a wall.
See the detail →When the poster should go on the glass rather than behind it. Printed vinyl applied inside or outside, removable without leaving residue on the frame.
See the detail →Browse the full list on our A–Z of everything we print, or see how this fits into signage in Melbourne.
Send the size, the quantity and the stock if you know it. We will come back with a price within two business hours on a working day.