Full-colour wristband printing
Send us a finished design, or just your logo, text, fonts, background and a rough idea of the look you want, and we’ll design it for you. Either way, we print it in full colour across the whole band, email you a proof for approval, and ship. There’s no setup fee, nothing to pay for the design work, and you don’t need a printer of your own.
Printed edge to edge: any photo or artwork can run the full length of the band. Every band carries its own unique serial number.
How it differs from Tyvek and vinyl
Tyvek and vinyl wristbands are printed in a single colour (black, silver or gold) on a coloured band. Full-colour printing turns the whole surface into your artwork: photos, gradients, sponsor logos, patterns, background colours. Whatever is in your design appears on the band.
The bands are made from glossy coated Polyweave, which keeps colours sharp and vivid instead of dull or faded. It’s the same material as our glossy laser-printable wristbands. The difference is that here we do the printing on a professional press, so you don’t have to print them yourself on an office printer.
No extra costs
How it works
- Order your wristbands with full-colour printing.
- Send us what you have: a finished design, or your logo, text, fonts, a background image and a description of what you have in mind. A paper sketch is enough to get started.
- We prepare the print-ready file free of charge and email you a visual proof.
- Approve it, or ask for as many changes as you need.
- We print and ship your wristbands.
Nothing to prepare in advance. Place your order first and send the artwork afterwards. We’ll send you a proof before anything is printed.
Order full-colour wristbandsArtwork specification
| Artwork size | 219 × 19 mm, the full printable area. Design edge to edge: no bleed or safety margin is needed. The last 3 mm at the end of the band can’t be printed, and the 30 mm serial-number zone at the start is outside your artwork, so you don’t need to leave room for either. |
| Resolution | As high as possible. For photos, 300 dpi or more at final size is ideal; lower resolutions can look soft on a glossy surface. We print at 600 dpi or higher, so vector artwork and small text stay crisp. |
| Colour mode | RGB is fine. There’s no need to convert anything, as we handle the CMYK conversion for printing. See the colour note below. |
| Vector files | .pdf, .ai, .eps, .svg, .cdr: best for logos, text and sharp lines. |
| Image files | .jpg, .tif, .psd: best for photos. |
| Fonts | Convert text to outlines, or send the font files with your artwork. |
| White | Not printed as ink. White areas are left unprinted, so the white band shows through. See below. |
| Sides | Printed on the front only; the back stays blank. |
How small can text and details be?
We don’t set a minimum size; that’s up to you. We print at 600 dpi or higher, so even small text stays sharp and readable: fine print, dates, ticket categories, or a line of terms along the band. Vector artwork makes full use of that resolution, and 300 dpi is plenty for photos.
For QR codes and barcodes, the limiting factor isn’t the printer but the phone scanning it. Make the code large enough for a phone camera to read it at arm’s length, and leave some clear space around it so the artwork doesn’t crowd it. The easiest test is to print your design at actual size on an office printer and scan it with your phone before you approve the proof.
⚠️ Colours on screen and colours in print
Please read this before approving your proof. Printed colours never match exactly what you see on your monitor, so expect a slight shift.
It’s a technical limitation, not a fault. Your screen creates colour from light (RGB: red, green and blue, lit from behind), while a press creates it from ink (CMYK: cyan, magenta, yellow and black), which you only see by the light reflecting off the surface. The two ranges don’t overlap completely, and some RGB colours have no CMYK equivalent at all. The gap is widest in highly saturated, neon and fluorescent tones: they look brilliant on a backlit screen and always print more muted.
You can still send RGB files, as we handle the conversion to CMYK. That conversion is where the shift happens, and no two monitors show the same starting colour anyway.
We don’t match Pantone or other spot colours. Full-colour printing is a four-colour process, so we can get close to a Pantone reference but never reproduce it exactly: that would need a dedicated spot ink, which this method doesn’t use. If a brand colour is critical, tell us before we print and we’ll let you know how close we can get.
Where your design is visible
The band is 250 mm long and closes with an adhesive end that overlaps the start, so once it’s on a wrist, part of your print disappears under that overlap. How much disappears depends on the size of the wrist.
You still design the full 219 mm and we print all of it, but treat the first 150 mm as the part that will actually be seen and put your logo, name and main message there. The centre of the visible area is 75 mm from the start, which is where people look first.
219 × 19 mm printable · first 150 mm visible on the wrist · last 3 mm unprintable · 30 mm serial-number zone at the start.
The same band with artwork: the logo and name sit inside the visible 150 mm, and the pattern fills the rest.
Serial numbers
Every band carries its own unique pre-printed serial number as standard, so no two bands in your order are the same. It’s what makes the wristbands hard to counterfeit or pass on, and it costs nothing extra.
The number sits in its own 30 mm zone at the start of the band, printed over a fine security pattern. It’s outside the area you design, so you don’t need to leave space for it and it will never sit on top of your artwork.
Consecutive numbering within a single series is available on request, for example XYZ001–XYZ500. Leading digits are randomly assigned, so these can’t be chosen. If you want numbering you choose yourself, see below.
Your own numbers, names and codes
As well as the standard serial number, every band can carry data of your own: your own numbering, names, a different QR code or barcode on each band, or any other text. If it fits in a column of a spreadsheet it can go on the band, so seat and table numbers, ticket types, dates, departments and guest names all work the same way. You send us the file and we print from it. There’s no extra charge for this, and the minimum order stays at 100 bands.
The design itself stays the same on every band. What changes from band to band is only the fields you supply in the file: the number, the name, the code. So it’s one artwork plus your data, not a separate design for each band.
Note that this is separate from the security serial number. The serial number in the 30 mm zone at the start is ours, it’s on every band as standard, and you can’t choose it. Your own data sits inside your artwork, where you want it, in your font and colours.
⚠️ Send the data as text, never as images
Variable data has to reach us as a CSV or XLS file: one row per band, one column per field, plain text in the cells.
This applies to QR codes and barcodes as well. Send us the text or the link that each code should contain, and we generate the codes ourselves. Ready-made QR codes supplied as image files can’t be used, so please don’t send a folder of code images.
Custom numbering. The same design with a running number, here 001 to 500. Tell us the range and where it goes, and leave enough room for the longest number you’ll reach.
Variable QR codes. Every band carries a different code, generated from the text or links in your file. Useful for single-use entry, access control, and anything you scan and check off at the gate.
What you can print
- Photos and background images that run to the edges
- Gradients, patterns and solid colour fills
- Sponsor and partner logos, several side by side
- Text, dates, ticket categories and access levels
- QR codes and barcodes, the same on every band or a different one on each
- Your own numbering, names and any other text, printed from a CSV or XLS file
Examples
Two more designs on the same band. Notice what they have in common: the logo sits well inside the first 150 mm where it stays visible on the wrist, the background runs edge to edge, and the serial-number zone at the start is left clear.
Solid colour blocks. Flat, saturated areas print cleanly and give a logo the strongest contrast, which is the safest choice if the brand has to be readable from a distance.
With a QR code. The code sits on a clear white field rather than on the artwork, which is what lets a phone camera read it quickly. Give it room, and don’t place it over a pattern.
White, and the back of the band
There’s no white ink. Wherever your design is white, we leave that part unprinted and the material shows through, and because the band is white Polyweave, it reads as white. White text on a dark background works as you’d expect: we print the dark colour around the letters, and the band itself forms the text.
Two things follow from this. A mostly white design leaves most of the band bare, which looks clean but flat. And a white area has the material’s own finish rather than printed ink on top, so it looks slightly different from a printed area next to it.
We print the front only; the back of the band stays blank.
The band itself
| Material | Polyweave, a non-woven fabric made from 100% recycled post-consumer polyethylene, GRS certified |
| Finish | Glossy coated, for sharp, saturated print |
| Size | 250 × 19 mm, printable area 219 × 19 mm |
| Durability | Fully waterproof, tear-resistant, non-stretch |
| Closure | Strong adhesive end with tamper-proof security cuts, so the band can’t be removed in one piece or passed to someone else. |
| Printing | Full colour (CMYK), front only. White areas are left unprinted. |
| Numbering | Unique pre-printed serial number on every band as standard |
| Minimum order | 100 pcs |
| Packaging | 1000 pcs / box |
Questions we get asked
Order your wristbands
Choose your quantity and we’ll take it from there. Send us the artwork, or just your idea, after you’ve ordered.
Full-colour printed wristbands