Popular Graduation Signs and Print Materials, With Banner Quotes You Can Copy

The five prints that carry grad season are a banner, a lawn sign, an announcement, an invitation and a thank you card, and the banner is the one you write rather than design. Keep the banner to the graduate’s name plus two to four words, size the capitals to about one inch for every ten feet people read it from, and order the whole set in one job so the school color is proofed once.

Grad season print pieces at a glance

Prices are the current starting prices in the configurator and step down as the quantity climbs. Start with the banner, because its wording sets the line you repeat on the yard sign and the invitation.

Why print still carries grad season

The pieces that matter most in June are a banner, a lawn sign, an announcement and a thank you card, and the banner is the one that needs writing rather than designing. Pick the words first, keep them to four plus the name, then size the type to the distance people will read it from.

Grad season is a group event, and a group event needs something physical to gather around. A story post disappears in a day. A 2 by 4 foot banner across the garage door is still up when the aunt who drove three hours arrives, still in the background of every phone photo, and still readable from the sidewalk where a neighbour walks past. That is the whole argument for print here, and it is a practical one rather than a sentimental one.

The other reason is the grandparents. Announcements and thank you cards land with people who do not check a feed, and a card with a name spelled correctly and a real signature is what gets stuck to a fridge for a year. Our graduation printing season planning guide lays out the order in which to book each piece so nothing gets rushed at the end.

What each piece is actually for

A banner is a headline. A yard sign is an address marker that happens to brag. An announcement tells people an event happened and is not a request for a gift. An invitation asks people to show up somewhere at a time. A thank you card closes the loop. Mixing those jobs is where most grad print goes wrong: an invitation crammed with a paragraph about the graduate, or a banner carrying a full ceremony address that nobody can read from the street.

Write one job per piece and the sizes look after themselves. The banner gets three words at four inch capitals. The invitation gets the date, the address and the RSVP in a readable ten point type. Nothing has to fight for room.

The timing that actually bites

Late May and early June is the tightest window of the year for anything with a ceremony date on it, because every family in the district is ordering in the same fortnight. Give yourself three weeks between placing the order and needing the piece in hand, and order the banner and the sign together so the artwork gets proofed once.

If the date slips, that is what turnaround upgrades are for. Check the shipping estimate on the product page before you assume a standard turnaround covers you, since a banner and a card do not print on the same press or ship on the same clock.

Graduation banner quotes you can copy

A banner quote works when it is short enough to read at walking speed and specific enough to be about one person. Two to four words plus the name is the sweet spot. The list below is written to be lifted straight into a template, and each line is tagged with the piece it suits.

Swap the name in, keep the line, and you are done. If a line runs over four words, it belongs on a photo wall banner people stand in front of, not on something read from the street.

Twelve graduation banner quotes, with the piece each one suits

Add the graduate’s first name above the quote at roughly twice the quote’s size, and the class year below it at about half. That three step hierarchy is what makes a short line look deliberate rather than empty.

How to make a quote fit the banner

Set the graduate’s name at the largest size on the piece, the quote at roughly half that, and the class year smaller again. Three sizes, three levels, no more. A banner with four competing type sizes reads as a flyer that got enlarged.

Then check the cap height against the distance. A 2 by 4 foot banner hung on a garage and read from the sidewalk wants capitals around four inches. A 3 by 6 foot banner strung across a field wants eight. Our standard banner sizes guide has the full size ladder, and how to make a graduation party banner walks through the layout step by step.

One caution on names. A hyphenated double surname at four inch capitals will not fit across 48 inches, and shrinking it to make it fit defeats the point. Use the first name on the banner and put the full name on the announcement, where it is read from a hand.

Where the banner hangs changes the material

On a garage door, a wall or an indoor party space, standard scrim vinyl with hemmed edges and grommets is right. On a chain link fence in an exposed spot, wind is the problem: a solid vinyl banner acts like a sail and will pull at the grommets, so a mesh face that lets air through is the safer order. That trade costs you some color density, because mesh has holes in it, and the print looks slightly lighter than the same file on solid vinyl.

Whatever the face, tie at every grommet rather than the corners only. Two corner ties is the most common reason a banner ends up folded over on itself in the middle of a party.

Yard signs and announcements that do the legwork

A 24 by 18 inch coroplast sign on an H stake is the standard grad lawn sign, and there is one build detail that decides the artwork: the flutes inside the corrugated plastic have to run vertically for the stake legs to slide in. On a landscape 24 by 18 inch sign that means the flutes run the short way, and any faint striping in a large flat color area will run vertically too.

That is worth knowing before you pick a background. A deep solid navy or a school maroon shows flute lines more than a lighter tint does, especially in low sun. If the design has a big flat field, ask for it slightly lighter, or break it up with a photo. The outdoor yard sign materials guide covers the material choices, and coroplast costs, stakes and quantity breaks explains why ten signs rarely cost ten times one.

Signs also fade. Four to six weeks on a lawn through a bright June is fine. A sign left out from May to September will lose the reds first, so if you plan to keep it for a sibling next year, take it in after the party.

Announcements versus invitations

An announcement states that the graduation happened or is about to. An invitation asks somebody to come to a party. They are different pieces and people who receive an announcement are not obliged to attend anything or send anything, which is exactly why announcements go wider than invitations do.

A graduation postcard is the cheapest way to do the announcement at volume, from $16.48, because it mails without an envelope and the photo side does the work. Put the ceremony details on the address side and keep the photo side to a name and a year. Wording help lives in our announcement postcard wording and design guide.

Photos that survive being printed large

A senior photo that looks sharp on a phone can fall apart at banner size. As a working check, a file needs enough pixels to hold up at the finished size, and a photo taken on a phone at arm’s length usually cannot carry a 3 by 6 foot banner as the full background. Use it as a panel inside the layout instead, at a size the file can hold, and let flat color fill the rest.

Ask the school photographer for the high resolution file rather than the proof download. It is normally available, and it is the difference between a crisp print and a soft one at the size that matters.

Invitations, thank you cards and the follow up

Party invitations at 5 by 7 inches carry the date, the address, a start time and a way to RSVP, and that is all they need. Graduation invitations start at $19.77, so a run of fifty is inside almost any party budget. Send them three to four weeks out, which is far enough ahead that people can hold the date and close enough that they still remember it.

The thank you card is the piece most families skip and the one that gets remembered. Send it within two weeks of receiving the gift, name the gift in the note rather than writing a generic line, and sign it in the graduate’s own hand. Graduation thank you cards also start at $19.77, and a folded card gives you an inside panel that is easier to write on than a flat card.

For an aunt who sent a cheque and lives four states away, a graduation greeting card from the family carries more than a text does. It costs more per piece at $56.02 for the run, so it is a small quantity item, not a mailing list.

Wording that does not read like a form letter

Name the gift, say what it will be used for, and stop. Three sentences beats a paragraph. Our guide to writing a thank you card that means something has examples, and the thank you card size guide covers how much room each format actually gives you to write in.

Have the graduate write them. A parent writing fifty notes in a parent’s handwriting is obvious to every recipient, and it removes the only thing that made the card worth printing.

What grad prints cost at 4OVER4.COM

Sign pricing moves with size, stock, single or double sided printing, and quantity, and the per unit cost drops sharply as the run grows. A single lawn sign and ten lawn signs are nowhere near a ten to one difference, which is why families on the same street often order together. The numbers below come from the live configurator.

You can also earn coins on every order and redeem them against the next one, which helps when a family is ordering a banner, a sign and two card runs in the same month.

Stock and finish choices that change the result

Three choices decide how a grad piece looks and how long it lasts: the material, the finish, and whether it is printed one side or two. On a lawn sign, double sided printing is the one upgrade worth paying for, because a sign at the kerb is read from both directions and a blank back is a wasted face. On a banner, hems and grommets are what keep the edges from tearing, and they matter more than the coating.

On cards, the finish changes how the piece feels in a hand. Gloss lifts a senior photo and makes color pop, matte reads calmer and photographs better under a flash, and an uncoated stock is the only one you can reliably write a handwritten note on with a normal pen. That last point decides the thank you card: a glossy card and a ballpoint do not get along, and the ink sits on the surface and smears. For a broader look at how invitation formats compare, see the invitation sizes guide, or browse invitation printing for every stock we carry.

Who orders what

The right set of pieces depends on who is doing the ordering, so here is the short version by situation.

• Families with one graduate. One banner, one lawn sign, fifty announcements, and thank you cards ordered at the same time so the artwork is proofed once. Order the thank you cards early, because nobody wants to design them the week after a party.
• Schools and districts. Fence banners at the ceremony, a name banner per honour student, and a run of programme inserts. Order in one batch so the school colors match across every piece.
• Photographers. Senior photo packages sell better with a printed sample on the table. A graduation postcard proof and a small banner show a parent exactly what the file can carry.
• Party planners and venues. Reusable step and repeat style backdrops that carry a year, plus dated pieces reprinted each season. Keep the undated artwork and swap only the year.
• Local businesses near a campus. A congratulations banner in the window during ceremony week costs less than a week of paid ads and reaches every family walking to the venue.

Templates and print-ready blanks

Starting from a template saves an evening. 4OVER4.COM sizes its blanks to the exact product specs, so the artwork lands inside the cut line with bleed already marked. Pull a print ready blank from the blank template library, or start from a designed layout and swap the name and year.

4

Wally sizes the graduation banner before he designs it

Words first, letter height second, layout last

Write the graduate name plus two to four words, then size the capitals to about one inch for every ten feet people read from. Four inch capitals suit a 2 by 4 foot banner on a garage, eight inch capitals suit a 3 by 6 foot banner across a field. Use mesh on a windy fence, tie every grommet, and 4OVER4.COM prints it in time for the ceremony.

Order graduation banners →

What to remember about grad season printing

Design tips that hold at every size

• Write the words before opening a template. A banner is a sentence, not a layout. Decide the four words, then find a design that gives them room.
• Three type sizes, no more. Name largest, quote at about half, year smallest. A fourth size turns a banner into a poster nobody reads from a distance.
• Proof the school color. Bright purples, reflex blues and fluorescent school colors shift on a CMYK press. Ask for a proof before ordering six matching pieces.
• Spell the name twice. Read the graduate name out loud from the proof, then have somebody else read it. A misspelled name on a banner is the one mistake a reprint cannot undo in time.
• Keep the artwork undated where you can. A backdrop that carries the school and not the year gets used again next June. Put the year on the cheap pieces instead.

Reading further: graduation sign design ideas for the front yard and the photo backdrop, senior poster design ideas, and announcement templates and wording ideas for the pieces that go in the post.

Common questions about graduation printing

More frequently asked questions →