Creative specs
The short answer
Three proportions cover most DOOH: 14:48 roadside bulletins, 16:9 landscape screens (spectaculars, venues), 9:16 portrait (transit, street panels). Exact pixel dimensions vary by owner and unit; Lamar and OUTFRONT publish per-unit spec sheets Lamar Advertising 2026 OUTFRONT Media 2026, and the sheet for your contracted unit is the only spec that counts.
The ratio family
14:48 bulletin16:9 spectacular / venue9:16 transit portrait
The names come from physical bulletin faces measured 14 feet by 48 feet; the digital canvas keeps the proportion at whatever pixel resolution the owner installed. Design at the exact pixel dimensions from the owner's sheet, never scaled from another ratio: a stretched 16:9 asset on a 14:48 face is the most common first-flight creative failure.
Files, durations, loops
- Roadside digital is almost always static frames (JPG/PNG) in 8-second slots; animation and video are restricted by owner policy and local ordinance; confirm per unit Lamar Advertising 2026.
- Venue and transit screens commonly take video (MP4) at 15- or 30-second lengths; specs come from the network or SSP.
- Loop rules (slot count, spot length, exclusivity) live in the contract, and they change your effective price; the math is in digital billboards.
Rules that matter at glance time
- Seven words or fewer for highway units; the viewer has seconds at speed.
- Contrast over palette: dark-on-light or light-on-dark, tested at distance; thin type disappears at 500 feet.
- One message per creative; rotate creatives for multiple messages instead of crowding one.
- Legibility beats branding flourishes; if the phone number matters, it is the headline.
Dynamic creative in pDOOH
Programmatic pipes let creative respond to triggers: weather, daypart, sports scores, countdowns, data feeds. The trigger executes at the CMS/ad-server layer, so capability varies by screen owner's stack (the CMS layer); confirm trigger support per screen list before promising it in a deck. Mechanics: what is pDOOH; format specs: formats; premium canvases: spectaculars.