A vinyl banner is a printed sheet of flexible PVC finished with welded hems and metal eyelets. We print, weld and punch ours at Ravenhall, in any size up to roll width and welded wider where a job needs it.
A vinyl banner is a printed sheet of flexible PVC, typically 440 gsm, finished with welded hems and metal eyelets so it can be pulled taut against a fence, a wall or a frame. The PVC is a woven polyester scrim coated on both sides, which is where its tear strength comes from. Print goes on with UV-cured or solvent inks that sit into the coating rather than on top of it.
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.
It is the cheapest way to put a large message outdoors for a year or more, and it fails in exactly one predictable way: wind. A solid banner has no way of letting air through, so every gust loads the whole surface and drags on the fixings. That is how banners end up torn at the eyelets, or lying in a car park with a section of temporary fence still attached. On an exposed fence line, mesh is the correct product and we will say so.
We print, weld and eyelet in the same building on Orbis Drive, so a banner does not travel between three businesses before it reaches you. Sizes are cut to whatever the job needs rather than a fixed list. There is no minimum, and our crews install where a banner is going somewhere awkward, high, or across a network of sites that all need to look the same.
Banner PVC is sold by weight, and weight tells you most of what you need to know. Heavier stock resists tearing and stays flatter under tension, but costs more and gets awkward at large sizes.
| Media | Weight | Construction | Typical outdoor life |
|---|---|---|---|
| Economy banner PVC | 340 gsm | Light scrim, single sided | Six to twelve months |
| Standard banner PVC | 440 gsm | Coated woven scrim | Two to three years |
| Heavy-duty PVC | 510–650 gsm | Dense scrim, high tear strength | Three to five years, longer out of direct sun |
| Blockout PVC | 550–650 gsm | Grey or black barrier core | Two to four years, prints both faces |
| Mesh banner | 270–340 gsm | Perforated, air passes through | Two to three years, the fence and scaffold option |
| Fabric banner | 200–260 gsm | Dye-sublimated polyester | Indoor use, folds without creasing permanently |
| Laminated PVC | 440 gsm plus film | Overlaminate on the printed face | Adds a year or so, and resists scuffing and graffiti |
Banners price by area, so the cheapest one has a short side inside a roll width. A 1700 mm drop needs a weld that a 1600 mm drop does not. If your size sits near that line, say so.
The print is the easy part. What decides whether a banner survives its first winter is the edge finishing and the way it is fixed, so this is where the detail matters.
The edge is folded back and heat-welded into a continuous hem about 25 mm deep. Welding fuses the PVC into one piece, which is stronger than sewing and far stronger than the double-sided tape budget suppliers use. Every eyelet then goes through four layers of material instead of one, and that is what stops tear-out.
Brass or nickel-plated rings punched through the hem, 10 mm internal diameter as standard. Corners always, then every 500 mm along each edge. On exposed sites we drop to 300 mm, because the load between two fixings is what rips a banner, not the wind speed itself.
A polyester rope welded inside the top and bottom hems spreads tension along the whole edge rather than concentrating it at each eyelet. Standard practice on large banners and anything going up on a building frontage. It also gives an installer something to pull against when tensioning across a long span.
A deeper hem, usually 75 to 100 mm, left open at both ends so a pole or timber batten slides through. Used for banners hung between posts, on a scaffold rail or across a driveway. Tell us the pole diameter and we will size the pocket, since a pocket that is too tight is impossible to thread on site.
An extra welded patch at each corner before the eyelet is punched. Cheap to add and worth it on any banner over about 3 metres long, because corners take the highest load and are the first place a failure starts. On heavy-duty banners we add them by default.
A grey or black core layer between two printed faces, so neither image shows through to the other. This is the only correct way to make a double-sided banner. Printing both sides of standard PVC produces a muddy ghost on each face that no amount of artwork adjustment fixes.
Cutting half-moon slits in a solid banner is a common request and it does very little. Air does not pass through cleanly, the slits become tear starting points, and the artwork is ruined. If wind is the problem, the answer is mesh banner media, not a knife through a good banner.
A clear overlaminate on the printed face adds scuff resistance and slows fading. The anti-graffiti version lets spray paint be wiped off with solvent without damaging the print underneath, which is worth considering for anything at street level on a long-running site.
Site identification, safety messaging and brand banners on hoarding and boundary fencing. Banners fixed flat against solid hoarding are ideal, because the hoarding takes the wind and the banner just carries the message. On open temporary fencing we will steer you to mesh instead. It is a smaller invoice for us and a banner that is still there in three months for you.
Entry banners, sponsor runs, stage backdrops and directional signage that goes up on Friday and comes down on Sunday. Because there is no minimum, a small community festival can order six banners and a major one can order sixty to the same spec. Fold them for storage rather than rolling if space is tight, and keep them dry before they go back in the shed.
Sale banners, new-store announcements and awning fascia covers. A banner is often the quickest way to change a shopfront message without touching the permanent signage underneath it. Worth a look at your lease and your local council rules first, because some centres and some councils hold firm views about banners on a facade, and it is a much cheaper conversation to have before you order than after.
Sponsor boards along a boundary fence, honour banners in a clubroom, and event banners for a season launch. Clubroom banners are the one case where indoor fabric can be the better buy, since it folds away without holding a crease and does not shine back under fluorescent light. For the fence line itself, mesh handles a windy oval far better than solid PVC ever will.
Banner artwork is read from further away than almost anything else we print, so the useful discipline is subtraction. Fewer words, bigger, in higher contrast.
Most banner briefs arrive as a logo, a phone number and a sentence, and that is genuinely enough. We build it at scale, allow for the hems and eyelets, and send a proof showing where the fixings land.
Printing, welding and eyeletting all happen here, so a banner never waits on a third party finisher — which is why same day banner printing is often achievable if you call early. We ask for your install date up front and give you a straight answer rather than an optimistic one. Banners fold small, so pickup from Ravenhall is easy, delivery covers metro Melbourne and regional Victoria, and interstate goes by freight. Our crews install where a banner is going high or across several sites.
Two to three years is the honest range for standard 440gsm PVC, and how much direct sun it takes decides where inside that range it lands.
A banner on a south-facing wall can still look presentable well past three years. The same banner on an exposed north-facing fence will look tired at eighteen months, with reds and oranges softening first. Heavier 550gsm stock with a laminate stretches it further. Mechanical failure at the eyelets usually arrives before the print gives up.
440 gsm covers the great majority of jobs and is what we quote unless there is a reason not to.
Drop to 340 gsm for short-term indoor use or a one-weekend event, where the saving is real and the risk is low. Move up to 510 or 650 gsm for anything staying outdoors for years, spanning more than about four metres, or going somewhere it will be difficult to get back to. Weight buys tear strength, not better print.
Every 500 mm along each edge, with an eyelet in every corner. That is our standard and it suits most sites.
On exposed fence lines, coastal locations or anywhere the wind funnels, we go to 300 mm spacing. The reason is simple: the wider the gap between fixings, the more the banner bellies out and the harder each remaining eyelet gets pulled. Doubling the fixings costs very little compared with a replacement banner.
You can, but you should not, and it is the most common banner mistake we see.
Temporary fence panels are freestanding and only weighted at the feet. A solid banner turns each panel into a sail, and a decent gust can walk a whole fence line over. Mesh banner media has an open weave that lets air through and drops the load dramatically. It costs about the same. On solid hoarding that is bolted down, solid vinyl is fine.
A pole pocket is a deep open hem, usually 75 to 100 mm, that a pole or timber batten slides through so the banner hangs from the pole rather than from eyelets.
Use one where the banner spans between two posts, hangs from a scaffold rail, or crosses a driveway. It spreads the load along the entire edge, which is far kinder to the banner than a row of individual rings. Give us the diameter of your pole, because a tight pocket cannot be threaded on site.
Yes, but it needs blockout media rather than standard PVC. Blockout has an opaque grey or black core between the two printed faces.
Print both sides of ordinary 440gsm banner PVC and each image ghosts through the other, leaving both looking dirty. The blockout core stops that completely. It costs more and is heavier, and it is the only way to get two clean faces. Where budget is tight, two single-sided banners hung back to back also work.
Still deciding? See our sign and banner sizes guide.
The right call whenever wind is part of the problem. Perforated media that lets air pass straight through, built for temporary fencing, scaffold and any exposed boundary line.
See the detail →Rigid rather than flexible. Fluted plastic board for site signs and fence panels that need to hold their own shape without a frame behind them.
See the detail →The indoor, portable cousin of a banner. A 2 metre graphic in a self-contained weighted base, for foyers, expos and anywhere nothing may be fixed to the building.
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, where it is going and how it will be fixed. We will price it and flag anything about the site that worries us.