Standee design with the cut line drawn right.

Part one is the purpose and the place. Standee design depends on what the standee is for: a life-size figure that greets people at a door, a product standee beside a shelf, a photo-op board at an event or a small counter display. Each has a different height, shape and viewing angle. We ask where it will stand, what’s around it and whether people will stand next to it or behind it.

Part two is the cut line. Cardboard cutouts and foam-board standees are cut by a machine along a path we draw as a separate vector layer. We simplify it on purpose: hair, fingers and thin edges get a smooth outline a few millimetres outside the image, often with a white or coloured border, because a cut that follows every strand of hair looks ragged in real life. Your printer’s minimum cut detail decides how simple it must be.

Part three is the stand and the balance. A standee needs an easel back, a base or a stand plate, and the design has to leave room for it. We place the stand on your printer’s template, keep weight low in the shape and widen the base where a figure has outstretched arms or a large logo at the top. For photo-op boards we place face holes at two heights so adults and children can both use them.

Part four is scale and image quality. A life-size cutout has to match real heights, so we scale figures to the person’s or product’s actual size rather than eyeballing it. Photos are checked at the printed size, because a two-metre standee shows every flaw. If the source photo isn’t good enough, we tell you before design starts, rather than after it prints soft.

Part five is rights. A cutout of a real person suggests they’re part of your promotion, so we only use people who have agreed in writing, such as your own team or a model with a release, and licensed characters only with the licence. We don’t generate a look-alike of a real person with AI. We design; you print. We deliver print-ready files made to your printer’s specification (size, bleed, colour profile and file format), and you place the print order with the printer you choose, so you see the printer’s price and proof directly.

The print files follow the same rules as our other print work: final size, bleed around the cut line from your printer’s template, the cut path as a named spot-colour layer, the colour profile your printer uses and a PDF/X export that ISO 15930-7 defines for complete print files. Text on the standee meets W3C’s contrast guidance, since many are seen in dim halls and foyers.

Where AI helps: cleaning up and extending product photos, building backgrounds for photo-op boards and trying layout options. Where it doesn’t: people’s faces, the cut line and the stand, which are drawn and checked by a person against the template. Client work is shown anonymously: see real client results on our results page.

Standee design also plans for transport and reuse. Large cutouts are often folded or shipped flat, so we check where the printer’s template puts the folds and keep faces and logos off them. A product standee that will travel to several stores gets a replaceable header or price panel instead of a fixed offer, and a photo-op board for an annual event leaves the year out of the main artwork. Good standee design means the same board can be used again, which is usually where its cost pays off.