Innovative EXPO offers a wide range of graphic art services and creative product designs to dress up your event or booth space. 

Our production materials and operating procedures allow us to quickly deliver low-cost signs and graphic pieces without sacrificing quality or service. Whether you are looking for a simple roll-up banner to place on your backwall, or a custom designed booth structure with rigid full-length graphic panels, we aim to produce an attractive finished presentation to fit your budget.

Click the tabs above to learn more about Graphics and Signs, or contact the Innovative EXPO team!

A flexible banner is a good choice if you have limited space for display equipment (as along the backwall of a booth), or as an eye-catching way to draw attention from above. Banners are often used as overhead hanging aisle markers, flags, or draped on walls.

Banners have the advantage of portability — particularly important if you plan to reuse your sign — plus they don't require special tools to set up. They do not have the glossy photo-finish of our mounted signs, but they may be a better fit for your budget.

Innovative EXPO banners are printed on high-quality, heavy vinyl scrim with a smooth, matte finish. They can be designed to hang from a rod with a "pole pocket" along the top edge, or grommets can be inserted along the top for hooks or ties.

Banners can be horizontal (landscape) or vertical, as long as there is something sturdy to hang them on. Innovative EXPO provides hanging hooks, ties, or a pole for a pocketed banner. If your banner will hang on a permanent wall or from the ceiling, you may need to contract with the hosting facility for installation.

Sizes: We stock banner material in a 42" width (printable width of about 41") and a 60" width (printable 59"). Your artwork can be printed full-color within the printable limit, by any reasonable length. Remember when you design artwork for a banner, you must consider the space taken up by your grommets (see right) or pole pocket (see below). If your artwork uses a white (unprinted) background, you can use the entire 42” or 60" material width. Banners with a background color or image will be trimmed to the edge of the printed area. If you want a banner that is less than the material width, we can trim off the excess — but this does increase waste. Instead, consider shortening the banner for the same square footage — and visual impact.

Important: If you plan to reuse your banner, and want to increase its durability, ask for lamination. Our pressure-sensitive overlaminate will enhance the colors and finish of your banner, and help protect against moisture, scratches, dirt and fingerprints.

Innovative EXPO mounted signs are printed in full color on photo-quality glossy vinyl, which is attached to a panel for display. The type of panel varies depending on the application, and may be rigid or flexible: Fome-cor, Gator Foam, and Sintra (flexible) are popular choices.

Mounted signs are divided into 4 types:

• StandUp
• Framed
• Easel
• Hanging

StandUp Signs slip into an aluminum base, and are mounted on 1/2" Gator Foam for rigidity. After the event, the panel is stripped of artwork, then reused to reduce waste. Pictured is our popular Luna StandUp sign, which measures 34" wide X 94" tall.  An outline file is available for this type of sign that provides helpful information throughout the design process. StandUp signs can be double-sided, and are particularly effective as a directional sign, or when marking the entrance of a trade show.

Framed Signs are housed in a metal frame, either a free-standing Sign Holder (left) or as part of a custom assembly. This type of graphic is often used to dress up free-standing counters, exhibitor booth spaces and/or entrance units to trade shows (right). A framed sign must be designed to precise dimensions; our vertical Sign Holders fit a 22"w x 28"h sign. If you are doing your own graphic design for one of our Entrances or other custom assembly, ask us for a detailed drawing.

Easel Signs may be any size from 8-1/2" x 11" to 47" x 47". We provide tabletop easel backs for small placards, or floor easels for larger signs (right). These signs are glossy vinyl mounted on 1/8" fome-cor, unless otherwise noted. The following sizes are recommended for the "greenest" sign production, minimizing waste when cut from a 4' x 8' panel: Tabletop Placards with folding easel backs   Floor Easel Signs - portrait / landscape trim size printable area   trim size all are full bleed (printable to edge) Q'ty per 4' x 8' panel 8-1/2" x 11" 8" x 10.5"   18" x 23" 11" x 17" 11" x 17" (full bleed)   23" x 31"       31" x 47" (1/2" panel)       47" x 47" (1/2" panel) Optional: Lamination for durability or dry-erase marker use.

Hanging Signs are usually mounted on 1/2" Gator Foam, and represent a nice upgrade from a fabric banner. This type of sign can be rectangular, or cut to a custom shape. Allow for 1" trim on a 4' x 8' panel, or use the sizes above as a guide.

James Babb, our Graphics Manager, applies his 30-plus years of design experience to each sign and graphic we produce.

An avid computer user since 1987, James has an extensive background that spans CAD, graphic arts, website and display design.

James currently works in Adobe Creative Suite 4 applications, with emphasis in Adobe Illustrator. He is equally at home with virtual design and hands-on sign production. Request his services for logo design, backgrounds, dress graphics or sign layout.

Whether you submit your own artwork, or ask James to create something especially for you, his focus on quality and detail always comes through in the finished product.

Artwork Submission

Preparing your artwork for submission will be far less challenging if you do it sooner, rather than later – particularly if this is your first time working with us. Many technical problems can be easily solved simply by making minor adjustments and/or format changes to the files, but you must allow enough time to rework and resend these data. 

Sizing your Artwork:

Please prepare your artwork to scale, either actual size (preferred) or at 50% scale. Be sure to indicate if you are using a reduced scale. Detailed drawings or panel sizes for all of our standard display equipment are readily available, so please ask before you begin designing.

Raster Images and Photos:

A common problem is using logos and other graphics collected from websites — they may look fine on-screen, but turn into a grainy mess when printed.

Plan on an actual-size resolution of 150 dpi for best results. For example, if you are using a photo or image that is 1024 x 768 pixels, you will get a nice sharp print at up to about 7" across. If you have a typical website logo of 200 pixels or so, don't expect it to look good any larger than 2 inches.

Color Problems:

Many graphics are designed more with screen display in mind than whether they will print well. Computer monitors use RGB (mixes of red-green-blue light) to display colors, while our printing process uses CMYK (cyan-magenta-yellow-black). These two color systems have different "gamuts", or ranges of possible colors. In other words, there are colors that will appear on your computer monitor but can not be duplicated in print. Avoid these common color pitfalls that look great on-screen, but may not translate well to 4-color process printing:

1. Subtle gradients, reflections and shadows. If the shadings drop below about a 10% ink density, they will often not print.
2. Dark colors that are near black. These tend to print as black, for much the same reason.
3. Low-contrast color combinations. The colors may print fine, but be difficult to make out from a typical viewing distance — especially text.
4. Colored shadows or "glow" behind type. This never prints well, and it makes the text look out of focus. Stick with black shadows for best effect.

If color matching is a concern, please send us a printed sample of your color scheme by regular mail. (No, e-mailing a .pdf file won't help). Every effort will be made to coordinate the colors in your signs with your sample.

Filetypes:

James prepares all artwork for output using Adobe Illustrator CS4. If you are using Illustrator, you have three good choices:

1. Send your .ai files, along with any fonts you are using
2. Save your files as .eps, with fonts embedded
3. Convert all text to outlines before submitting your files

If you are using a different program, try option 2. If that doesn't work for your program, we can accept almost any file format you might have - just be sure to allow time for conversions on our end.

Sending your files:

The simplest and fastest way to submit sign artwork is via e-mail as an attachment, provided your files are under 10 megabytes. If they are much larger, use our FTP transfer site; e-mail James for current FTP instructions and password.

As a last resort, you can mail a CD-ROM — just keep in mind the time lag, especially if something turns out to be wrong with your files.

There's always "Plan B":

If you lack the experience (or the time!) to prepare final artwork for your signs, you do have an option: Ask Innovative EXPO to do it for you. Full graphic design services are available, at reasonable rates. Plus, you can be sure your artwork will be perfectly suited to our equipment and process.

Traditionally, trade show and event signage has created a enormous amount of waste. Not only are sign materials bulky, they are also typically used for only a few days, then discarded. Adding to the problem is the popularity of "print on board" methods, where the artwork is printed directly on the panel. This type of printing unfortunately eliminates any possibility of reuse.

Innovative EXPO's Go Green! program was launched in 2008, with the goal of reducing our waste stream by at least 50%. The Graphics Department has taken the following steps towards that goal:

Reusable panels — By combining a thin sheet of removable artwork with durable rigid panels, this type of signage reduces waste to less than 20% of a typical throw-away sign. Damaged panels that can no longer be reused find a second life as panels for smaller signs.

Maximizing Panel Use — Small signs are typically mounted on fome-cor sheets, which are not reusable. To limit the waste created by trimming, all small signs are "tiled" to cover the fome-cor sheet as completely as possible. If you require more than a few small signs, consider using one of these greener sizes:

trim size	Q'ty per 4' x 8' panel	trim size	Q'ty per 4' x 8' panel
18" x 23"		31" x 47"
23" x 31"		47" x 47"

Recycling — In addition to separating waste from recyclables at show site, Innovative EXPO continues to investigate recycled and recyclable sign materials as they become available.

Storage Service — Many trade show graphic elements are unchanged from one season to the next. As a courtesy to our show management customers that have contracted to repeat their event, any reusable graphics are carefully wrapped and stored for their next use.