Making great banners isn't an accident, it is the result of a series of specific decisions. If you want to make great banners, the tips in this article will help you out.
Creating banners is admittedly not something that you do a lot as a desktop publisher. The odds are that you only get one or two requests in a year, around the holidays. That said, while making banners may not be part of your usual projects list, you do have all the skills needed to create great banners in your skills bag. These tips can help you to use those skills to create great banners.
Sure when you think about a banner what comes to mind is width. There are, however, odd-size banners to contend with, like square and triangle, even if you have a traditional shape, be sure about the size. The ratio of length to height will be important when you are picking your images and font.
When it comes to images, you will want to match the ratio as closely as possible. While resizing an image is pretty easy, altering ratio often leads to an image looking squished or stretched, which is not what you want. Fonts are another matter. Do not try to match widths or you will end up with smushed looking, or worse, hard to read text. Be aware that if you have a triangle shaped banner that you may need to adapt the size of your text line by line in order to make it readable. Granted, it is not a common senario, but you should be aware of it.
Banners are not subtle, which is probably why they look awful when a subtle color combination is used. Unless a viewer has a lot of time to look at the banner, or is viewing it from a long distance angle, subtle colors can look muddled. Go bold or high contrast. Of course, the normal rules of color apply. Just remember that you can get away with some more outlandish colors with low transparency.
There you have it. Great banners without compromising your signature style. Now you can keep your clients happy, and make large-size signs and banners that will make anyone sit up and take notice.