How to choose a display board in London: mounted or direct-printed, shaped, and how it stands up

Enquiries about display board printing arrive under half a dozen names. Some ask for printed display boards, some for foamboard mounting or foamex mounting, some for printing and mounting as one job, some simply to print on board. Underneath, the question is the same one we ask first on the phone: what is the board for, and does it stand outside? That answer picks the material, and only then do size and quantity matter. What the trade calls mounted board printing is one specific build among several, not a synonym for the product, and knowing which build you are buying is what stops a shaped board arriving as a rectangle.

Mounted or direct-printed: the build decides the shape

A mounted print is printed on paper and laminated to the board, which is the standard build for exhibitions, presentations and easel display, and it is trimmed to rectangular formats. A direct-printed board has the graphic printed straight onto the Foamex with no paper layer, which is why there is nothing to lift, bubble or delaminate on work that gets moved and re-used, and why the board can be contour cut to any shape. Silver Image London offers both as same-day products, including contour cutting on direct-printed boards, subject to that day’s capacity, with the ready time for each job confirmed at quotation. Contour cutting happens in the same building as the printing, so a shaped board does not go out to be cut and come back, and the hour it is ready is the one on the quote. Print-and-trim work typically takes 2 to 4 hours, printing and mounting adds a production stage on top of that window, and the ready time for a given job is confirmed at quotation. The two builds are different products rather than two names for the same thing, and the difference decides how the board ages and whether a shape is possible at all.

Which board, and which thickness?

3 mm Foamex is the default for indoor display work, easel boards and exhibition panels; 5 mm is the choice where the board has to hold itself flat without bowing, run larger, or take print on both faces. Thickness settles how flat the board stays, not how it is held upright, which is a separate decision on the order. Rigidity is easier to judge by hand than by specification: a board at A1 holds its own weight in one hand, with no frame and no backing behind it. Tell us the finished size and how the board will be supported, and the thickness follows from those two rather than from a rule. Where the board is going outside for longer than a season, the material changes rather than the thickness; Foamex itself is fine outdoors in a sheltered position for a short spell. Correx, a fluted polypropylene, is the temporary outdoor board and comes in three grades — 3.5 mm at 600 gsm, 4 mm at 700 gsm and 5 mm at 1000 gsm, the heaviest being the one for panels over 1200 × 900 mm and for free-standing inserts. Dibond, an aluminium composite, is the board for signs fixed to a building for years rather than for a season. Which of the three you need is a two-minute decision, and Foamex or Dibond for outdoor signs sets the weather question out in full.

Can a display board be cut to a shape rather than a rectangle?

Yes, on a direct-printed board, and the cutting happens in the same building as the printing rather than going out and coming back — arrows, logo shapes, and on Correx site boards the slotted agent boards as well, anything a vector path describes. The condition is in the file: the cut path has to arrive as a closed vector on its own layer, in a spot colour, named as the cut path. A shape drawn on the artwork layer cannot be cut to, and a shape sent without a path gets a rectangle. An internal cut-out is worth asking about rather than assuming: where you need an aperture in the middle of a board, send its proposed closed vector path with the dimensions and position for assessment, and take the answer from the quote rather than from the drawing. Where the shape carries fine detail, the safe margin works the same way round a contour as it does round a trim: on Foamex keep text and logos 5 mm inside the contour cut line, and on Correx allow 10 mm and keep clear of the fixing positions, so nothing important sits where the blade or an eyelet lands. Preparing artwork for large format covers the rest of the file.

How the board stands up

A display board stands up in one of four ways here, and the one you want has to be said at the order stage, because fixings have to be kept clear of the artwork. A strut easel is bonded to the reverse and folds flat, so boards stack for storage and transport. A reusable aluminium easel takes the board where it has to stand in a room rather than on a counter. On a Correx site board, fixings go through the board itself: 11 mm eyelets in the corners or every 500 mm on larger perimeters for cable ties, or 4 mm drilled corner holes for screw fixing to timber or brick, with penny washers so the head cannot pull through. Score-folding, again on Correx, creases channels so the panel wraps a square post or stands as a self-supporting triangle. Counter and desk work is usually ordered as strut cards, which are the same 3 mm Foamex with the strut already part of the product; a pavement sign is an A-board, where the board is an insert in a frame rather than the structure. A seating plan or welcome board is the common easel job, and table plans are usually A1 for 100 to 150 guests and A0 above that, displayed on an easel or mounted to a wall, with matt as the standard finish so the plan stays readable under venue spotlights.

One boundary is worth stating plainly, because it decides who books what: on site boards we print, cut and finish but we do not install. Boards leave with the fixings prepared to your specification, and fitting is yours or your contractor’s. Fixing method also changes how the panel behaves outdoors: on Correx the flutes run vertically as standard for post and fence mounting, because a board whose flutes run across the load folds along a flute line in wind. Panel sizes for a run of hoarding or a set of site boards are planned around the sheet, which for 3 mm Foamex is 1220 × 2440 mm.

What the artwork needs

Resolution on a display board is measured on the printed board at its finished size, not in the file: 300 dpi at finished size for a Foamex display board, and 150 dpi at finished size for a Correx site board read from further away. A file built at one tenth scale and 300 dpi lands at 30 dpi once it is printed full size. Everything else is ordinary print-ready practice, and every file is checked here before it goes on press, with anything that needs adjusting raised before we print rather than after. On strut cards a blank PDF template with bleed lines is available on request, so a designer can set the file up against our cutting from the start. The arithmetic behind resolution at size is in what DPI an A0 poster needs, and what file format to send covers export.

Getting a rigid board to the room it is needed in

A rigid board cannot be rolled, so it travels flat by van rather than in a tube; a tube would put a permanent crease through the board. That single fact shapes the delivery question more than the deadline does, and it is why boards go by van while a rolled print can go any number of ways. Exhibition panels run regularly to ExCeL, Olympia and the Business Design Centre, where the requirement is signage that stands up straight without curling, and overnight exhibition printing covers the venue side of a stand build. Two jobs from our own floor show the two shapes this takes. Six A0 panels on 3 mm foamex had their artwork in at 21:36 and were delivered to Clerkenwell before 1pm the next day; two A1 boards for an investor reception in the City of London were approved at 12:20, had the courier booked at 13:28 and went out on easels the same afternoon. What the clock allows at A1 and A0 specifically is set out in A0 and A1 board printing, and production at our London print shop runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with printing, mounting and cutting all under the same roof.

Checklist before you order a display board

• What it is for, and whether it stands outside — the material follows from that answer, not from the size.
• The build — mounted print, or direct-printed if the board has to be shaped or handled repeatedly.
• The finished size and the quantity at that size — sizes run from A4 up to 240 cm, standard and custom, so send the dimensions rather than a format name where the board is not an A size.
• The thickness — 3 mm for indoor display, 5 mm where the board must hold itself flat, run larger or print on both faces.
• The shape, with the cut path in the file as a closed vector on its own layer, and any proposed aperture sent for assessment.
• How it stands — a strut or an easel on a display board, or, on a Correx site board, eyelets, drilled holes or a score-fold — and where the fixings go.
• The finish — say where the board will be lit; matt is the standard on table plans and strut cards so they stay readable under venue spotlights, with gloss on request.
• Single or double-sided, remembering that double-sided Foamex work goes on 5 mm Foamex.
• Where it is going and when, and that it will arrive flat by van rather than in a tube.

Every job is quoted on its specification, so the size, the board, the shape and the fixing all sit on one figure — current prices and quantity breaks are on the foam board printing, Correx printing and strut card printing service pages, and for a panel larger than A0 send the finished dimensions, because every job is quoted on its specification; the wider large format printing range covers the same ground at scale. Stand graphics for a shell scheme are their own product, covered on exhibition graphics, and a paper print for a frame rather than a board is poster printing. Where the question is who can make a sign near you rather than which board it is, signs made near you in London answers that one, and the full rigid range sits in same day signs.