As a neutral observer of Saturday's FA Cup final I found myself getting over-excited. Not about whether Malouda's strike was a goal or not, but about the superabundance of large-format graphics to be seen at the event.

Prior to kick-off giant patchworks of images representing each club were carried onto the pitch, and they looked great on TV, really effective. They seemed to have been produced on some sort of meshy fabric substrate, am waiting on further details viz who and how from the FA.

Then as the camera panned around the ground there were banners aplenty hanging from the stands, I laughed out loud at one in the Everton end with a cheeky message to Roman Abramovich about "having to go to Harrod's for your silverware". Amusing but ultimately incorrect.

It struck me that not so long ago it would have been a sea of scrappy home-made messages painted onto sheets. Nowadays people can go online and order a huge, professionally printed bespoke one-off banner with the same simplicity as ordering a greeting card from Moonpig. Banners too are now both affordable and accessible.

Speaking to Gary Lasham at DS Smith Multigraphics this morning, he tells me that the firm's The Banner People website has indeed seen a surge in orders over the last couple of weeks as fans exercised their creativity ordering banners for both the FA Cup and Champions League finals. It's a great example of web-to-print technology enabling a whole new market for print, and a welcome reminder that even though "the end of the world is nigh" would probably be the most obvious choice of banner text for lots of people in the industry at the moment, it's not all doom and gloom. In fact, maybe I should have a banner made to that effect...