View source for Doing a great poster on the cheap

Printing up a 3' by 5' poster at Kinkos will set you back about $200, and it will be on flimsy poster paper and require a special tube for mailing or checking through.  As an alternative, you can design a 2.5' by 5' poster in three 20 inch by 30 inch parts and have these three parts printed as though they were photographs at the online Costco photo service. [http://www.costco.com/PhotoCenter/PhotoCenter.aspx Costco Photo Center]    You can, of course, pick alternative services. 

What I do is design the piece like a triptych so that the images and text are not split between the three parts. The most important graphics are on the center part. I do the design as three Adobe InDesign files (you can choose any poster design software) and then export them as high resolution (300dpi) tiff images that I then export into high quality JPEG files. 

I upload the three files to my Costco photo account and then ask Costco to print out glossy large-scale prints, 20" by 30" each.  Costco charges $10 per print (so, $30 total) plus some shipping.  If you are in a rush, you can have them ship directly to the Hotel! It takes about 2 days to get the print done, and 3-5 days for the UPS service.  The total cost is about $40, and it comes in a tube that you can carry on the plane and shove into the overhead compartment.  The paper is thick and the images and print are super clean.

Cheers,
Bruce