Custom-branded traffic cones: the complete guide to marking cones with your logo

It’s the request that comes up most often in our inbox: “Can you quote me for cones with my customer’s logo?” Then, almost without fail, the same questions in the next email: how big is the marking, what file should I send you, what is this “screen-printing screen” line on the quote, and how quickly can I be delivered.

This guide answers all of it, in order. The goal is simple: to let you submit a complete request first time, and know exactly what you’ll receive.

Why mark your cones

A marked cone is no longer an anonymous consumable. It becomes identifiable, and that changes three concrete things.

It halves theft. This is the clearest and most measurable effect. From what we observe across our customers, marking reduces cone theft by 50 to 60%. The reason is simple: a plain cone is easy to resell or reuse, whereas a cone bearing the logo of a civil engineering firm or a local authority becomes a liability. Across a fleet of several hundred cones replaced each year, the saving quickly outweighs the cost of marking.

It makes your fleet traceable. On a site where several companies are working, identical cones get mixed up within a day. Marked, they find their way back to you.

It works for your brand. Your cones sit at the roadside, seen by hundreds of drivers an hour, sometimes for weeks. That’s an advertising medium you’re already paying for.

Two techniques, depending on cone height

This is the point most often overlooked, and it governs everything else: the marking technique depends on the height of the cone, because EN 13422 does not cover the whole range.

Screen printing — 500 and 750 mm cones

Cones of 500 mm and 750 mm fall within the scope of EN 13422. Their retroreflective strips provide the cone’s night-time visibility and therefore cannot be covered without degrading the performance the standard requires.

Marking is applied by screen printing with ink, directly onto the body of the cone — the orange part between the two retroreflective strips. That’s the configuration shown in the photo at the top of this article.

Digital printing — 300 and 900 mm cones

Cones of 300 mm and 900 mm fall outside the scope of EN 13422. That constraint disappears, which opens up another technique: digital printing, allowing full-colour marking — and, crucially, marking directly on the strip.

• On the 300 mm cone, which has a single strip, the marking goes on that strip.
• On the 900 mm cone, it usually goes on the lower strip.

In short: if your logo only exists in colour and you want it reproduced faithfully, the cone size is part of the conversation.

Actual marking size

The available format also depends on cone height:

Cone	Technique	Marking size
300 mm	Digital printing	comparable dimensions, on the strip
500 mm	Screen printing	approx. 7 cm high × 10 to 11 cm wide
750 mm	Screen printing	up to 10 cm high × 15 cm wide
900 mm	Digital printing	comparable dimensions, on the lower strip

These formats aren’t arbitrary. A cone is a conical surface, curved in both directions: the wider the artwork, the more it distorts towards the edges. Beyond these dimensions, a logo starts to “run away” at the sides and loses legibility. What you gain in surface area, you lose in sharpness.

In practice: a very wide horizontal logo, or a company name spelled out in full with a strapline underneath, works poorly. A compact design — a symbol, a monogram, a short name — gives a far better result.

One side or two

Marking can be applied to one side only, or to two opposite sides.

One side is enough if the cones are laid out along a carriageway and seen mainly from one direction. Two sides make sense for circular layouts, event perimeters, or simply when you want the logo visible from any angle of approach. Specify this in your request: it affects the quote.

Marking colour

With screen printing, marking is done in a single ink. Two colours are available, and the choice depends on the cone’s colour:

• Black ink on orange, yellow and green cones;
• White ink on blue cones.

This isn’t an aesthetic preference but a matter of contrast: black ink on a dark blue cone becomes unreadable from three metres away, and the marking no longer serves any purpose.

With digital printing (300 and 900 mm cones), that constraint disappears: your logo can be reproduced in full colour.

The artwork to send us

Just send us whatever you have. That’s the main message of this section, and it matters more than any list of specifications.

We handle the vectorisation

We know that not everyone has brand guidelines, or a designer they can reach the same day. As long as the logo isn’t too degraded, we take care of vectorising it and preparing it for production. It’s work we do routinely, including from middling-quality images, and it’s part of the service.

In practical terms: a logo pulled from an email signature or lifted off a website can be handled in the vast majority of cases. Don’t hold up your quote request over a file problem.

What saves us time

If you have it to hand, it’s quicker and the result is perfect from the outset:

1. A vector file — .ai, .eps, .svg or a vector .pdf. This is the format your logo was created in by your designer: it scales with no loss whatsoever.
2. A high-resolution image — .png or .jpg, from around a thousand pixels wide, on a transparent or plain white background.

The only genuinely problematic case is a tiny, heavily compressed image in which the original artwork is no longer identifiable. In that situation we’ll tell you straight away rather than deliver an approximate marking.

Adapting a colour logo

For screen-printed marking, a multicoloured logo has to be converted to a solid monochrome. That conversion involves a real judgement call: a logo built from several tones of similar brightness can become illegible once flattened to solid black — the areas merge and the design disappears. In that case we propose an adaptation, which you approve on the proof.

For digitally printed marking, the question doesn’t arise: the colours are preserved.

The screen-printing screen: what it is

This is the line on the quote that surprises people most, so let’s explain it.

Screen printing works like a stencil. To print your logo, a screen has to be made — a frame stretched with a mesh into which your artwork is etched. Ink passes only through the etched areas. This screen is made specifically for your artwork: it serves no other customer, and it has to exist before the first cone can be marked.

Three practical consequences:

• It’s a one-off cost, not a per-cone cost. It relates to creating the artwork, not to the quantity produced.
• It is kept. If you later reorder exactly the same marking, the screen already exists.
• Any change of artwork means a new screen. A redrawn logo or altered text means a new stencil to etch.

One point worth flagging from experience: on a first order with new artwork, this line is essential. It sometimes gets left off a purchase order, and we then have to come back to you to put it right — which delays the production start. If you’re ordering a new marking, mention it explicitly.

Note that the screen is specific to screen printing. Digital printing, used on 300 and 900 mm cones, prints directly with no stencil.

The proof: the only step that commits you

Before any production, we send you a proof: a representation of your artwork as it will be marked, at its real size and position on the cone.

The proof exists for a simple reason: once the marking is applied, there’s no going back. Screen-printing ink is permanent — which is precisely what it’s there for.

What to check before approving:

• Spelling, including capitals, accents and abbreviations;
• The proportions of the logo and how it reads once adapted;
• The colour selected;
• The number of sides to be marked.

Production only starts once we receive your written approval. A proof awaiting a reply is an order at a standstill — and on urgent orders, that’s usually where the days get lost.

Real lead times

All our cones ship with their strips — we don’t sell bare cones. Here’s how preparation time breaks down:

Configuration	Indicative preparation time
Cones with strips, available from stock	around 2 working days
Cones out of stock, with strips to be applied	2 to 5 working days depending on quantity
Cones with strips and marking	6 to 7 working days on larger volumes

On top of this preparation time comes transport, typically 2 working days within mainland France.

Urgent order? Tell us

These are normal production lead times, not technical limits. Our workshop marks between 1,000 and 1,200 cones a day. In other words, on a genuine emergency and if the schedule allows, a marking run can be completed within the day.

So the rule is simple: if your delivery is tied to a site date, say so when you request the quote rather than planning around the standard lead time. We’ll organise production accordingly.

Three things, on the other hand, extend the lead time without showing up on the quote:

• Waiting for proof approval — the clock doesn’t run until you reply;
• Making the screen for new screen-printed artwork;
• A round trip on the logo, if the file sent can’t be used as it stands.

At what quantity does marking make sense?

The answer lies in the nature of the cost. Since the screen is a one-off cost independent of quantity, it is spread across the number of cones marked: the larger the run, the more negligible its share per cone. On a short run, it inevitably weighs more heavily.

Two situations where it’s still worth it on small quantities:

• You expect to reorder the same artwork: the screen is kept and won’t be remade;
• The marking answers a need to identify your fleet, or a recurring theft problem — and there, 50 to 60% less theft changes the arithmetic.

Our pricing is also tiered by quantity. If you’re torn between two volumes, ask us to quote both: the gap is sometimes smaller than expected.

Checklist for a complete quote request

To get an accurate quote from the very first exchange, send us these six pieces of information:

1. The cone reference or specification — height (300, 500, 750 or 900 mm), weight, retroreflective class required;
2. The quantity, or the quantities you’re weighing up;
3. The logo file — whatever you have;
4. One side or two to be marked;
5. The cone colour, which determines the marking colour;
6. The delivery address and required date — flagging any urgency.

Also tell us whether this is a first marking or a repeat of artwork already produced with us: in the latter case, the screen already exists.

Need cones with your logo?

All our REVO cones can be customised, from the 300 mm REVO 08 to the 900 mm REVO 70, in orange, blue, green or yellow — more about marking.

Request a quote: a reply within 48 hours with a proposal suited to your needs. You can also write to us directly at contact@ehsgroup.fr attaching your logo — we’ll come back to you with pricing and a preview.

To choose the cone itself before discussing marking, see our complete guide to traffic cones.