Life-sized standups can be used for so many purposes and in so many locations. If you’re a business owner, a custom standup becomes a de facto extra employee, one in which you don’t have to pay. If you’re planning a party, you’re in luck. Standups are perfect for parties. If you paid for a booth at a convention, a custom standup can really draw people to you, and you can drum up a whole lot of business. As you’ll see from this article, you are only limited by your imagination.
This is a classic lifesize cardboard cutout. The grandparents in the background couldn’t be with their granddaughters for Christmas. So they did the next best thing. They sent themselves to spend that magical day with the girls.
Creative Uses for Life Size Stand Ups:
One creative example that a custom standup would be perfect for is a family reunion. Maybe one member of the family simply can’t make it to the reunion. What better what for that family member to “be there” in sending them a life-size standup of themselves? That person can even order the standup with a blank speech bubble, and those at the reunion can take turns filling it in with fun things they might think the real-life version would say.
You can use a custom standee of a person who you’re putting on a fundraising golf event for. Maybe you’re trying to raise money for a surgery for the honoree, and a visual of that person looking quite healthy could be inspiring to those golfing.
We have actually sold several Band-Aid superhero standups that a customer has purchased for several children’s hospital events.
How about parties? The same holds true for a birthday party as the family reunion scenario earlier in the article. You can also have a whole lot of fun with a retiring co-worker. Snap a photo of the employee and have us custom make the life-size standee to where the co-worker is using a walker. It will be the life of the party, and photo ops will be plenty.
You will draw some oohs and ahhs if your child is celebrating a 13th birthday and you get a life-sized cutout of the birthday kid with a lifesize standee of them from when they were just a baby.
Materials Used for Life-Sized Standups:
Once we receive your photo, we use four materials to produce a custom standup. They are:
- Ink
- Corrugated plastic
- Cardboard
- Velcro
The Ink: That’s what is used from the image you will have sent us to recreate said image. This ink has a matte finish, which will be better than a gloss finish for standees. The reason for this is that people will undoubtedly take pictures of the standee or pose for one with it. A matte finish has the look of a hardcover novel, where a gloss finish has the look of a magazine. The shine that gloss delivers will create some glare when pictures are taken, and they won’t turn out clear.
Sheet: A sheet is industry jargon for the piece that the image actually goes on. There are two types of sheets: corrugated plastic and cardboard. We use cardboard sheets for our standard custom cardboard standup. Cardboard will accomplish your goal, without a doubt. And we use a strong, heavy cardboard material. Corrugated plastic, or coro, is a type of thin yet strong plastic. We use corrugated plastic for our premium-level standees. Stronger than cardboard, coro is resistant to moisture and dirt.
Other bonuses that make coro our premium-level material are that it is resistant to moisture, that dirt is easily wiped off, and that it has a much longer lifespan than cardboard. Because coro comes with those qualities, it does cost a little more.
The Velcro: A standup has to…stand up, right? We connect the stand (frame) to the larger piece that has the image on it with Velcro, which comes off very easily, which allows for smooth transport. Especially if you attend a lot of expos, you’ll want to bring the standup with you to these several locations you’ll be travelling.
Options & Cost for Custom Life-Sized Cutouts:
There are a couple other options in the sign industry that are similar to standups. We make two different cutouts that will still make you very happy. They are cardboard cutouts and headsicles, more commonly referred to as big heads. To be clear, our cardboard cutouts are exactly the same thing as standups. We include the stand on every cardboard cutout; unless the customer requests, we don’t include the stand. We, at Good Guys Signs, have taken plenty of orders with people asking to not have the stand included. If that’s the request, we discount the price.
When it doesn’t have a stand included, a custom cutout will typically get taped to a wall. If you need to save on space, a cardboard cutout minus the stand definitely works. A little FYI for you now. While we always provide the stand for a cutout, don’t think that’s commonplace. There are plenty of print shops out there that don’t provide a stand.
The other option we have in our arsenal is the headsicle. These became quite popular at sporting events. You’ve seen them. People will hold up a likeness of themselves or even try to get the attention of their favorite player by making one of the players and waving so as to catch the player’s eye.
We’ll work with you on customization if you want to add a speech bubble to your headsicle. Whatever way you choose to display your headsicle, it will undoubtedly be a hit. And we can almost guarantee you’ll score some TV time if you do take one to a sporting event.
Average Cost: As far as an average price goes, there really isn’t an average. What we can tell you is that we sell ours way, way below the price most any other shop sells theirs for. Here’s a cost breakdown for our custom standups:
- Desktop = $65
- For a 4 foot tall = $79
- For a 5 foot tall = $84
- For a 6 foot tall = $80
- Up to 7 feet tall = $109
- Up to 8 feet tall = $139
Those are the prices for our standard cardboard standees. If you want to upgrade to our premium corrugated plastic standee, tack on an extra $20 to the price of each of the above.
How to Order a Custom Life-Sized Standup:
How would you go about deciding on a standup? There are numerous things you can do. Take this picture, for example. Maybe you have a daughter who’s a freshman in college. She went away for school, and she really misses her pooch. Imagine the smile she would have on her face when that standup arrived at her dorm. That’s just one example of how creative you can get with these life-sized bits of awesome.
Placing an Order: It’s quite simple to place an order for your new custom standup. You can either start with a phone call to our talented design team, and they’ll walk you through the process, including what you need to do. You can bypass this initial step and just snap a photo and email it to us. You can provide notes for us in your email. Lastly, you can use our handy and user-friendly design tool on our website. You would upload your image and click on “Add to Cart.” We will send you a proof, and once you approve it, we’ll start producing your order immediately. We will have your custom standee ready for you to pick up, or us to ship to you, in just two days.
Your Image: Time for the technical portion of the program, but it is extremely critical. It’s all about pixels and dpi (dots per inch). Your image should look excellent on, say, your computer screen when you’re about to send it to us. Any picture can look great on a small cell phone screen. But when you view it on a larger screen, you’ll get a better idea of how it truly looks. Pixel count is crucial. Pixels per inch (PPI) refers to an image in digital form. PPI relates to and translates to DPI, which refers to an image in printed form. So, when you have the image on your computer screen, right-click the image. You can see typically in a drop-down menu that you can click on “File Info.” When you click on that, you will be able to see your pixel count. Should your image have a pixel count of something like 3,000 x 7,2000, you can be assured that your high-quality image will be excellent print quality. If you see a pixel count that reads 2,160 x 5,184, it’s still good print quality. If your pixel count is lower than that, the image won’t look crisp. It will look grainy. Our designer will attempt to sharpen the image. However, we cannot guarantee that it will turn out as good as you’d like it to look.
In Closing:
A life-sized custom standup is great for parties, fundraisers, and especially for business. It has an interactive feel to it, where others that are taped to a wall are apart from the scene. Remember your pixel count. It will make or break your custom standee. Most people take pictures with their phones. And most phones should be set up to deliver you the high resolution needed for a quality image. We tell you not to worry too much, but to absolutely be sure the pixel count doesn’t dip below that 2,160 x 5,184. The fact that you’re reading this information again should let you know of its importance when getting your image right.
But have fun. Be creative. Know your audience. Then snap that image for effective use in so many arenas.
