Acrylic Printing in Dubai
Sun Studio prints directly onto acrylic sheet at our Al Quoz studio in Dubai, for signage companies, fabricators, designers and brands across the UAE. This is direct UV printing on acrylic sheets, the material also sold as Perspex or plexiglass: cast or extruded, clear, opaque or coloured. The ink is cured onto the sheet itself, so a printed acrylic panel keeps the depth and gloss of the material instead of looking like a graphic applied over it.
It is the workhorse of display and interior work in the UAE: retail and exhibition displays, acrylic sign boards, interpretive and wayfinding panels, feature walls, menu and price boards, and the layered decorative panels that suit Gulf interiors.
Send the sheet size and artwork and we will tell you how to set it up. There is no minimum order.
What we can print
Acrylic is not one material. What arrives here falls into a few groups, and they do not behave identically:
- Clear acrylic: where the sheet has no white of its own, so white ink decides whether the artwork reads as colour or as a tint.
- Opaque and coloured sheet: white, black and colours, which give ink a ready-made ground.
- Cast acrylic: the sheet most fabricators prefer for cut and polished work; it machines cleanly and is less prone to stress cracking.
- Extruded acrylic: thinner and more economical, and more sensitive to heat and to solvents, which matters when it is being cleaned.
- Frosted and satin sheet: a diffused surface that suits backlit panels and gives colour a soft ground.
- Cut and shaped pieces: letters, discs, layered panels and routed shapes, printed after cutting.
- Display and exhibition components: menu boards, holders, plinth faces and stand panels.
- Awards and plaques: printed on the face or, on clear acrylic, on the back. Award orders go through crystal and awards printing.
Printing capabilities
Which of these suit your job depends on the sheet and where the panel ends up:
- Direct UV printing Direct printing on acrylic means the ink is cured onto the sheet, with nothing laminated over the top.
- White ink As a full backing behind the artwork, or selectively behind only the elements that must stay opaque on a clear sheet.
- Reverse (second surface) printing Printed on the back of clear sheet so the image is seen through the acrylic. That is what gives reverse printed acrylic its depth and gloss, and it keeps the print away from the touched face.
- Multilayer builds Colour and white laid in a defined order, which is what makes a reverse-printed panel read correctly.
- Large-format sheet Full display and feature-panel scale printed in one pass rather than tiled.
- Raised and textured effects Ink built up so a logo or a pattern can be felt as well as seen, as on the Etihad Rail model base shown further down.
- Print onto cut shapes Pieces routed or laser cut first, then registered and printed.
Clear acrylic or opaque acrylic
This is the decision that changes the artwork, the cost and the look, and it is worth settling before files are prepared.
Clear sheet
A clear sheet supplies no white, so colour printed straight onto it behaves like a stained layer and the wall behind shows through. White ink is what makes colour hold.
Clear also opens up reverse printing: print on the back, view through the front, and the acrylic itself becomes a gloss layer over the image. The artwork has to be mirrored and the white goes down last rather than first. Our article explains how reverse printing on acrylic works and how direct print compares with face mounting.
Opaque sheet
White or coloured sheet gives the ink a ground immediately, so colour reproduces closer to how it looks on a proof and less white ink is needed underneath.
It is the simpler and usually cheaper route for signage, menu boards and anything wall-mounted where nothing needs to be seen through the panel. Where a design wants both (an opaque block with clear areas around it), that is selective white on clear sheet rather than a coloured one.
Who this is for
Acrylic work here comes mostly from:
- Signage companies: needing panels printed rather than plotted and weeded.
- Exhibition and event builders: stand panels, graphics and lightbox faces on a short programme.
- Retail brands and shopfitters: displays, shelf talkers, menu boards and counter graphics. Our guide to printing for luxury retail displays compares glass, acrylic, wood and ACP.
- Interior designers: decorative and layered acrylic as part of a scheme.
- Museums, galleries and heritage projects: interpretive and label panels, often bilingual.
- Fabricators and joinery workshops: who cut and assemble but do not print.
What to send before we can quote
Acrylic is quick to quote once we know the sheet:
- Sheet size: the finished panel dimensions.
- Thickness: 3mm behaves differently from 10mm on the bed and in handling.
- Clear, opaque or coloured, and cast or extruded if you know it.
- Whether the sheet is cut to shape, and whether it has holes, standoffs or polished edges.
- First surface or reverse, or tell us how it is mounted and we will advise.
- Quantity, and whether panels are identical.
- Artwork, with white handled deliberately: flag which elements must stay opaque.
- Indoor or outdoor, and whether it is backlit.
Not sure which file to send? Our artwork preparation guide covers file formats, vector conversion and what each surface needs.
How it works
Sheet size, thickness, sheet type and artwork.
We confirm first surface or reverse, how white should be handled, and what the artwork needs.
For colour-critical or backlit work we print a test piece on the same sheet first.
Panels are printed, checked and packed with the protective film kept on where it helps.
Printed acrylic we have produced
Acrylic panels printed direct onto the sheet at our Al Quoz studio, unless a caption says otherwise.
Technical considerations
Acrylic prints readily. It is one of the friendlier substrates for UV ink, but it has its own failure modes, and they are nothing like those of printed glass.
What to watch:
Static
Protective film
Solvent sensitivity and crazing
Cast versus extruded
Transparency
Order of operations
Outdoor use
Common questions
Can you print directly onto acrylic?
Is there a minimum order for acrylic printing?
Do you supply the acrylic sheet, or do we?
How large and how thick a sheet can you print?
Can you print acrylic that is already cut to shape?
How long does an acrylic printing job take?
Is printed acrylic suitable for outdoors?
Where is the acrylic printed, and do you deliver outside Dubai?
What artwork do you need?
How much does acrylic printing cost in Dubai?
Have acrylic to print?
Send us the sheet size, the thickness, whether it is clear or opaque, and the artwork. We will confirm whether it should be printed first surface or reversed, how white should be handled, and what it will take.
Acrylic Printing projects
Real Sun Studio work involving this service. See the full portfolio.
Technology used
Direct Color Systems UV84: the flatbed used for acrylic sheet, including reverse printing on clear stock. Its bed is 4 x 8 ft. See the full printer fleet.
Sun Studio belongs to the same Dubai group as PRO TECHnology, which distributes Direct Color Systems equipment in the Middle East, so read our view of the machine with that in mind.