Construction Hoarding London
020 3375 6674 info@silverimagelondon.com Open 24 hours, 7 days a week — call or email and we will tell you what is possible today.
Printed construction hoarding panels, produced in London to your elevation drawing. One continuous design split into numbered 2440 × 1220 mm panels on Dibond for the long builds or Correx for the short ones, with anti-graffiti laminate where the street argues back. Made to order against an agreed date — panels arrive on site cut, numbered and ready for your contractor to fix; single damaged panels reprint from the files we keep. Hoarding panels are strapped and delivered direct to site gates — most weeks that means developments around Canary Wharf and Stratford.
Every run is quoted from the elevation drawing. Send us the elevation and we will come back with a firm price and a firm date.
What a printed hoarding is, and what the panel split means
A printed hoarding turns the legally required fence around a building site into the project’s own frontage: CGI renders and completion dates for a residential development, tenant announcements for a retail fit-out, or clean corporate branding where a bare plywood wall would drag the street down. The print is not the structure — the timber wall is your hoarding contractor’s work; the panels that skin it are ours.
The craft is in the panel split. A hoarding design is one continuous elevation, often tens of metres long, and it reaches site as a sequence of 2440 × 1220 mm sheets mounted vertically side by side. We take the continuous artwork, split it to the panel grid, and number every sheet in sequence — so the installers work down the run panel by panel and the image closes up across the joints. Faces, logos and headlines are kept off the seam lines at the proofing stage, where moving them costs nothing.
Where printed hoardings go up: residential and commercial developments — marketing elevations that sell apartments before the crane leaves; retail refurbishments — branded enclosures in shopping streets and centres while the fit-out runs behind them; and civil works — public information graphics softening a long occupation of the pavement. The mandatory safety signage that accompanies every site is its own product — printed separately and screwed beside the graphics, not into them.
| Material | Outdoors | Character | The right run |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 mm Dibond / ACM | 5–10 years | Dead flat, does not warp or rot; takes laminates cleanly | Multi-year developments, exposed and high-profile frontages |
| 5 mm Foamex | 1–2 years | Lighter and cheaper than ACM, solid face | Shorter builds and sheltered runs, interior mall enclosures |
| 4–5 mm Correx | 6–12 months | Fluted, very light, a fraction of the cost | Short occupations, temporary diversions, budget-led sites |
Printing, laminates and the graffiti question
Panels are printed direct on the UV flatbed onto the sheet and cut to the split on the Zünd, with screw pilot holes drilled on request so fixings land on the structure rather than through a face in the artwork. Every hoarding run gets a protective laminate as standard practice: matt to kill headlight and low-sun glare on traffic-facing runs, or anti-graffiti in streets where the wall will be tested.
The anti-graffiti film is the difference between maintenance and replacement. It is a clear, chemically inert layer over the print: spray paint and marker sit on the film instead of bonding to the ink, so the site team wipes the tag off with a solvent cleaner and the render underneath survives. On an unlaminated panel the same solvent takes the print off with the paint — which is how developments end up rebuying whole elevations.
Fire classification, where the specification demands it, is handled the honest way: mineral-core ACM ordered in for the job, with the board manufacturer’s certification datasheet passed on with the order so the site file matches the fence. And the boundary that keeps everyone’s promises clean: we print, laminate, cut and number the panels — the hoarding structure and the fixing are your contractor’s trade.
Timeline, delivery and replacement panels
Hoarding runs are made to order, against a date agreed at the quote — a long elevation is real production time, and we would rather give you an honest date than a hopeful one. The sequence: you send the elevation drawing, we come back with the panel split and price, the proof marks every seam, and production is booked to land before your installers do. Panels arrive stacked in sequence, numbered and wrapped, delivered to the site gate across London.
Once the run is up, the workshop’s 24-hour rhythm starts working for you: we keep the panel split files, so a sheet lost to a reversing lorry or a determined vandal is a numbered reprint on the overnight run — ordered by panel number, on site the next day, laminate and all. The hoarding stays whole without anyone redesigning anything.
One planning note worth reading before the artwork is finalised: in most London boroughs, hoarding graphics that advertise — the development, the brand, the agent — need Advertisement Consent from the planning authority, while plain safety information and contractor details are usually exempt. The rules belong to the borough; check with the planning office early, and we print to whatever has been consented.
Artwork specifications
Elevation file, panel split, bleed, colour, format
Preflight the elevation artwork — at hoarding scale every pixel is a centimetre.
| Requirement | What we need | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Elevation file | One continuous artwork per elevation, built at 1:10 with 300 dpi imagery | We execute the panel split here — a pre-sliced file hides the seams from the people who have to manage them. |
| Seam discipline | Faces, logos and headlines clear of panel joints | Every 1220 mm there is a joint. The proof marks each one; moving a logo at proof stage is free. |
| Bleed | 5 mm per panel edge; 50 mm+ top and bottom on sloping runs | Clean joints need bleed — and stepped panels on a slope consume vertical image nothing else will replace. |
| Header and kicker zones | Keep critical content 150 mm off the top and bottom of the wall height | The header rail and kicker board cover the extremes of the elevation on site. |
| Colour mode | CMYK, not RGB | Brand colours shift in an automatic RGB conversion — send Pantone references where the colour is the meaning. |
| File format | PDF preferred — but send what you have | Every file is checked here before production; if something will not survive at full size we say so before printing, not after. |
Before you upload
- Send the elevation drawing with real site dimensions
- One continuous file per elevation — we split it to panels
- Flag sloping ground so the bleed is built in from the start
- State the material, the laminate, and whether panels need pre-drilling
- Name the install date — production is booked to land before it
Q&A
What material is best for a printed construction hoarding in London?
For a build measured in years, 3 mm aluminium composite (Dibond/ACM): it does not warp, rot or drink water, and carries print cleanly for 5 to 10 years outdoors. For a build measured in months, Correx is the honest economy - a fraction of the cost, rated 6 to 12 months on the fence. 5 mm Foamex foam board sits between them for sheltered or short-term runs.
Do I need permission for printed site hoarding graphics?
Often, yes. In most London boroughs, hoarding graphics that advertise the development or a brand need Advertisement Consent from the planning authority, while plain safety information and contractor details are usually exempt. The rules are the borough's, not ours - check with the local planning office before the artwork is finalised, and we print to whatever has been consented.
How are hoarding panels fixed to the timber structure?
Screwed to the horizontal rails of the hoarding through the panel perimeters - stainless or coated screws with colour caps keep the face tidy. Fixing is done by your site team or hoarding contractor; panels leave here cut to the split, numbered in sequence, and drilled on request so screws land where the structure is.
What if the site needs a fire-rated hoarding panel?
Where the specification calls for a fire classification, we supply ACM with a mineral-filled core instead of standard polyethylene, ordered in for the job. The classification is the board manufacturer's, and the certification datasheet travels with the order so site paperwork matches the panels on the fence.
Can a single damaged panel be replaced without reprinting the run?
Yes. We keep the panel split files from your job, so a panel lost to a delivery lorry or a spray can is a numbered reprint, not a new project. Ordered by the panel number, it prints on the overnight run and goes to site the next day, laminate and all.
How do hoarding graphics handle a sloping street?
The structure steps or rakes with the pavement, so the artwork needs spare image beyond the panel edges - we ask for at least 50 mm of extra bleed top and bottom on sloping runs. Design the artwork with that in hand and the installers can step the panels without exposing raw timber or losing a headline off the top.
Often ordered with this
Key facts: ordering tonight
- Open 24 hours, 7 days a week, including Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays.
- Print production runs 24/7; the walk-in counter serves the day and evening, and the status bar at the top of the page shows live whether it is open right now.
- Files and payment received by 21:00 → overnight production for delivery before 9am the next morning, subject to that night’s capacity; we confirm at quotation whether the run fits.
- No fixed overnight cap: tell us the quantity and we say at quotation whether it can be done in time.
- Overnight jobs are normally couriered to arrive before your office opens; collection is arranged around your arrival time — call before you set off after 8pm so the job is bagged and waiting at the counter.
- No minimum for walk-in jobs during the day — one copy is a normal job. Out-of-hours collection or delivery carries a £95 minimum plus courier if required.
- Same-day and overnight courier delivery across London, most often EC1–EC4, W1, WC1–WC2, E14 and SW1.
- Exhibition delivery to ExCeL, Olympia, the Business Design Centre and other venues: send us the hall, your stand number, the named person on the stand and their mobile, and the build-day or opening time you need it by; we deliver to the stand.
- Send what you have: we check the artwork before anything goes on press and tell you what to fix; a print-ready PDF (CMYK, 3 mm bleed) is the fastest route.
- Quotes come with a secure payment link — Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal and Klarna; production starts once payment is in.
- Courier delivery within London is usually in the region of £35–45, depending on the postcode and which courier is free; the exact figure is on your quote and is added to the job price.
- A proof is available on request; when we design the artwork you always get a final proof to approve. Print-ready files are printed on site and our operator checks the run against a printed proof sample before it leaves.
- Before we accept an urgent job we look at what could go wrong with the file, the stock and the finishing, and plan so that a reprint would still fit inside your deadline.
- Every order has a dedicated member of staff and an agreed completion deadline; we do not run an e-commerce queue, so the time we give you is for your job.
- Bank transfer is accepted alongside the payment link: tell us when you have sent it — the job goes to production once accounts confirm it has arrived.
- Outside London and towards the M25 courier costs more: we check with the couriers and confirm the price with you before booking.
- The bleed and 150 mm content-clearance measurements refer to finished size and should be divided by ten in artwork built at 1:10 scale.
Send us the elevation
The elevation drawing, the material, the laminate and the install date — that is the whole specification. We come back with the panel split, a firm price and an honest production date.
Open 24 hours, 7 days a week — the production desk answers at any hour, including from site. Collection is arranged around your arrival time — call before you set off after 8pm.
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