The How To – 12' x 8' Oklahoma! Musical Banner

Nikon D5, Sigma 35mm ƒ/1.4 DG Art, ISO 280, ƒ/8, 1/100 [photo by: Dorie Griggs]

This year we are getting our PR for the musical Oklahoma! started much sooner than last year's production of Into The Woods. We are about 2 months before the performance with the 12' x 8' banner.

Last year we up just a little more than a month before the performance.

[photo by: Dorie Griggs]

Last year the banner was 9' x 6'. When I put the banner up last year I can remember the feeling that it wasn't big enough. I do believe that the 12' x 8' is plenty big for the space.

Nikon D5, Sigma 35mm ƒ/1.4 DG Art, ISO 140, ƒ/8, 1/100 [photo by: Dorie Griggs]

Every 2 feet there is a grommet to help you tie the banner to posts like I am doing here. If you are putting this outside and not on a wall you really need to use everyone of those grommets. When you do and wind comes along then each grommet has less tension on it than say if you used just the corners. Your banner will do better in the wind if you tie it down well with all the grommets.

[photo by: Dorie Griggs]

You can get an idea of how really big the banner here is from the back with me on a 6 foot ladder.

HOW TO MAKE A BANNER

1) Select your source to make the banner. I use AllStateBanners.com. Here is a link to their specs to give you an idea of what you need to supply as a file size. https://orders.allstatebanners.com/design-specs

2) Select your image. My recommendation is to shoot in RAW and in Lightroom or PhotoShop resize the image to the size of the banner. I did it here and exported the photo as a JPEG to 12 feet on the long side. You need to check with your banner source to see their specs. They said 150 dpi or more.

 3) Open the JPEG large photo in PhotoShop and then put text over the photo.

4) All State Banners can take most file types. The first time I sent them the PhotoShop file saved as PSD. The last two banners I just exported out of PhotoShop as JPEG. Again the size being the exact size of the banner at 150 dpi. As a PSD the file is 1225.1 MB file. As JPEG it is 66.1 MB file size.

The total cost this year was $229.44. I only paid $206.50 because they were running a 10% discount.

Now this is only part of our PR. Here are two Facebook Cover size photos for the people to post on their pages to help promote the musical as well.

Stay tuned to see other ways we use photography to help market the musical.