Banners are a great way to get your message across to a lot of people in the cheapest way. Whether you design and print it yourself or have a professional do it for you, banners can add excitement and visual support to your events. This form of advertising has been around for years and years. Today, they are popularly seen at mall events, trade shows, conventions, and parties and on town streets.

It used to be that banners were made from cloth and printing was done through silkscreen. The process was meticulously done by hand. But over the last years, tarpaulin or vinyl has become a popular choice for banners.

Vinyl has allowed machine printing and flexibility for layout artists to add as many details to the design as the client wants. For example, photo quality images in full colors can be printed on the banner.

Have you ever been to a motor cross race and seen a stunt driver break through a banner? Have you wondered how they do it? Well, it used to be that events organizers would use paper for an easy rip. But ingenuous thinking allowed the use of vinyl for that purpose as well. The vinyl banner is made of two pieces, attached in the middle by Velcro. The stunt driver crashes into the banner, and it simply detaches into two. Organizers can re-use the banner for the next stunt t.

Banners come in various shapes and sizes, although practicality and artistic sense have made the square or rectangle the most appropriate shape for most occasions.

Check out various online sites and magazines to get ideas on how to design the layout of your own banners. Templates are also available to suit most of your needs.