A1 poster printing

594 × 841 mm, or 59.4 × 84.1 cm: a DIN A1 poster offers about half a square metre, the same area as eight A4 sheets. It is the size for places where nobody stands right in front of your poster: a shop entrance, a hall, a stand. Configure your posters directly in A1: choose paper, finish and quantity there and see the price in CHF at once.

You can order from 1 copy: a single poster for the pavement sign outside your shop, or several signs to guide delegates round a conference. The more you order, the lower the unit price.

Where an A1 poster earns its place

• Shop entrance and pavement: a new shop opening, a tasting at the wine merchant's, the start of the season at a sports shop. The outdoor pavement sign for DIN A1 puts the poster right outside your door.
• Hall and foyer: a church concert, a public debate, signs pointing to registration at a conference.
• Stand: a product image on an easel beside the table, at a market, a careers fair or a wedding fair.

In a full hall, the front rows hide the bottom of the poster: put the key information in the upper half.

Legible from a distance: type and contrast

An A1 is read in passing, often from several metres away. Stick to one message: what, when, where. The full programme belongs on a flyer or behind a QR code.

• Type: strong, simple typefaces rather than thin or decorative ones; a headline of a few words, clearly larger than the rest.
• Contrast: dark text on a light background, or the other way round, and never text over a busy part of a photo.
• QR code: large enough and with clear space all round, so a smartphone can still read it from a step or two away.

A simple test: print your draft on A4, which has just over a third of the side length of an A1. If the poster needs to work from 6 metres, look at the sheet from just over 2 metres. Whatever you cannot read, your audience will not read either.

Paper and finishes for an A1 poster

In A1 the choice covers matt and glossy coated paper (100 to 250 g), white offset (80 to 190 g), 115 g poster paper, photo paper, 840 g cardboard and 210 µm backlit film. Natural, linen and recycled papers are not offered in this size, and the certified versions are all PEFC.

Where the paper allows, the configurator adds matt or glossy lamination, high-gloss varnish, partial glossy UV varnish and gold or silver hot foil on the front. For an A1, matt lamination is the one to consider: it protects the poster when it is rolled up and reduces glare in a glazed entrance.

On a wall, the front-only printing (4/0) of the starting settings is enough. Hung from the ceiling above a stand, an A1 is seen from both sides: double-sided printing (4/4) then makes sense, on a heavier paper so the back does not show through.

The A1 file: large, but not huge

Build the A1 file in CMYK at 594 × 841 mm trimmed, with bleed added. At 300 dpi the calculation gives 7016 × 9933 pixels, but an A1 is viewed from a distance and in practice you need fewer. How many depends on the image and the reading distance; if in doubt, our team will answer via the contact page.

Save text and logo as vectors in a PDF so that edges stay clean even close up. Do the same with the QR code, which otherwise blurs when enlarged. The print templates for posters show the bleed and the safety margin, and the printing glossary explains what CMYK and bleed mean. We review every file before it goes into production.

When A1 is not the right fit: A2 and A0

Where space is tighter, against a pillar in the foyer or in the snap frame beside the door, an A2 poster with half the area is enough. For a hall wall or the back of a large stand there is the A0 poster, twice the size of A1. Other poster sizes, including some outside the DIN series, are compared in our guide to print sizes.

Shipping in Switzerland: CHF 7.00 per order, free from CHF 100. All prices are in CHF and include 8.1% VAT.