Extinction Rebellion – Banners for Rebellion Week
(April 2022, Fossilupproret)

1. Background

Public protests should show its messages clearly and protest banners have great visibility even in large crowds (in combination with telescope poles or ceiling support poles) or on large buildings. Although re-using old cloth (e.g. old bedsheets) is eco-friendly, disadvantages are costs for cloth (often free though), paint, vulnerability to rain and wind, and worktime. Therefore, I designed my banners digitally and had them  professionally produced by a printing service as mesh banners, which are highly resilient to wind and rain, and can be re-used multiple times. With enough funding, a larger numbers of banners can be produced at low cost in a short time.

After hitting limitations of other general purpose office software (eg LibreImpress has a page size limit of 3meters, GIMP and many other graphics programs do not support the CMYK colour model required by most printshops), I decided to use SCRIBUS, which is a professional, open-source desktop-publishing software. Core features include support for the CMYK colour model and scalability to large projects. The CMYK colour model is important to make sure that the printed colours are as expected, since deviations from the on-screen RGB model may occur. Thereby, it allows you to use low-cost online printing services, e.g. flyeralarm.com, which accept only files with the CMYK colour model to ensure product quality.

In the following I make some basic instructions and the SCRIBUS and PDF files of the designed banners available below:

2. Quick Instructions

Note: You can skip steps 1 to 5 by using the banner templates (PDF format) available for download below.

  1. Install XR fonts (FUXCED font)
    Download Fonts (including special Swedish characters): fucxedcapsregularswedish.ttf (ttf files, zipped)
  2. Read Instructions from print service [General Instructions]
  3. Design poster (including bleed and safety distance)
    Note: Bleed does not work properly in SCRIBUS (or with the PDF Driver respectively), so I recommend overlaying frames to allow for the bleed and set the bleed in SCRIBUS to zero.
  4. Export with CMYK color model to PDF with recommended resolution of 300dpi up to A3 format, and 150dpi for larger formats. (Watch out for the right PDF version, they are qualitatively different! A higher version is not necessarily better! Use PDF X1a:2001 1.3!)
  5. Optional: Quick check colours with print of banner on a single A4 paper with your own colour printer
  6. Upload to supraprint24.eu

3. Download

The following banners were designed following the suggestions by other activists. The designs are for a final banners with 700cm x 130cm. The files contain in addition 1cm bleed on each side, ie a total size of 702cm x 132 cm. The printing area with background has 701cm x 131cm (ie 5mm extended) to avoid white lines at the edges of the final banner.

3.1 Images (for screen)

Print settings: JPG, 120dpi, sRGB

3.2 Images (for print)

Print settings: JPG, 120dpi, CMYK

3.3 PDF (for print)

Print settings: PDF1.4, 120dpi, CMYK

Banner_EH_B1_SlutaFinansieraKrig_V3.pdf

Banner_EH_B2_AvvecklaFossilekonomin_V3.pdf

Banner_EH_B3_StoppaAllaFossilaSubventioner_V3.pdf

Banner_EH_B4_FramtidssäkraSamhället_V3.pdf

Banner_EH_B5_FossilfrittFörFred_V3.pdf

Banner_EH_B6_LoveInAction_V3.pdf

 

 

http://wilmarigl.de

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