A1 · 59.4 × 84.1 cm
The A1 wanted poster: a person, life-size, on a wall
A1 is four times the area of A3 and eight times A4. At that scale the poster stops being a gift you hand over and becomes a piece of staging: the thing behind the birthday table, at the entrance to the party, or permanently owning one wall of a studio. It changes what the poster is for, so it changes how you should build it.
Instant download
One file, any size you can find a printer for.
- 3600 × 4680 px, PDF and PNG, no watermark
- Hand it to any large-format print shop
- Personal-use licence, unlimited prints
- Free watermarked preview before you pay
Optional add-on
Museum-grade cotton, from $19.99, 3–5 business days.
We ship a fixed range of framed-standard formats; every dimension and price is listed in the sizes and formats guide. For wall-scale sheets, the download plus a local large-format printer is usually faster and cheaper than shipping paper that big.
See what shipsBe honest about resolution at this size
Most sites quietly avoid this question. The file you download is 3600 × 4680 pixels. Stretched across the 59.4 cm width of an A1 sheet that works out at roughly 150 dots per inch — half the figure quoted for desk-sized prints.
That is not a problem, it is how large-format printing works. Resolution requirements fall as viewing distance grows: billboards are routinely output below 20 DPI and look perfect from the road. At A1 nobody stands closer than a metre, and at a metre 150 DPI is past the point where the eye can resolve individual dots. What it does mean is that A1 is unforgiving of a bad source photo. Start from the largest original you have, not a screenshot of a message thread.
If you want the full arithmetic of size against sharpness across every format, the sizes guide lays it out, and the A4 page covers the opposite end, where the same file runs above 400 DPI.
Write it shorter
The single most common mistake at A1 is bringing an A4 joke. A long, precise wanted-for line is a delight at reading distance and a wall of text from four metres away. At this size the line has to work as a headline: four or five words, no subordinate clause, no set-up.
- Works at A1: “Wanted: dead or retired.”
- Works at A1: “Wanted for forty years of overtime.”
- Save for A4: “Wanted for reheating fish in the third-floor microwave.”
Same rule for the photograph: a tight crop on the face, high contrast, nothing competing behind the head. The brief-writing guide has the full treatment of name, crime and reward, and the concept gallery is useful for finding a short line that still says something specific.
Where an A1 earns its space
Party backdrop
Taped or clipped behind the food table. Every photo taken that night has the poster in it, which is the real return on a big sheet.
Office or studio wall
One person, permanently wanted, watching the room. Works best when the crime is about the work rather than the person.
Retirement send-off
Signed around the border by everyone who came. The margin is the gift; the poster is the excuse.
Club and team rooms
One A1 for the captain, A3s for the rest. Scale communicates hierarchy without anybody having to say it.
Getting it printed and getting it up
Take the PDF to a large-format printer and ask for matte rather than gloss — the sepia halftone loses its paper feel under a shine, and gloss at this size throws reflections across the whole sheet. Ask for the poster placed to the width of the sheet; because it is slightly squarer than A-series paper you get a natural margin top and bottom, which at wall scale reads as intentional framing rather than a mistake.
Hanging: A1 frames exist but cost more than most gifts. Poster hanger rails, a strip of magnetic tape, or four bulldog clips look better than a cheap frame and survive being moved. Placement and grouping advice for permanent walls is on the wall art gift page, and if you are printing at home instead, the settings are on the printable poster page.
A1 questions
How sharp is the file at A1?
The download is 3600 x 4680 pixels. Across the 59.4 cm width of an A1 sheet that lands at roughly 150 dots per inch. That is half the 300 DPI figure quoted for desk-sized prints, and it is the normal working resolution for large-format posters, because nobody stands 30 cm from an A1 sheet. From a metre away it reads as sharp. Under a magnifying glass it does not.
Where do I get an A1 printed?
Any large-format or copy shop prints A1 from a PDF, as do most online poster printers. You own the file and the personal-use licence, so you can hand it to whichever supplier is cheapest or closest.
Which sizes do you ship yourself?
The shipped print options and their dimensions are listed in the sizes and formats guide. For anything larger, the digital file plus a local large-format printer is the practical route.
Should the wording change at this size?
Yes. At A1 the wanted-for line is read from across a room, so cut it to four or five words. Long, specific jokes belong on the A4 desk version. Blunt beats clever at this scale.
Build it once, print it as big as you like
The file is yours the moment you buy it, at $4.95. See the finished poster watermarked and free before you decide.
Make my poster — $4.95