"Grand Openin Sale" - 6 foot tall letters, Stood back to look at it and added an exclamation point, since I had an extra window. Duh. "Hey, painter. Where is the letter G?"
"For Infomation call XXX-XXXX" Client: "Should I call the Pol-eece?"
"Lowest Prices Garanteed" 36" tall letters
"Double Copons!" 24" tall.
What are your worst mis-spellings?
[ January 08, 2013, 09:40 AM: Message edited by: Preston McCall ]
Posted by Craig Sjoquist (Member # 4684) on :
Worst I ever did.
6 ft X 12 ft double back lighted for a Ford dealer Not only did I miss spell commercial But painted it all backwards on the inside... ouch ...cost me another $800 to redo
Posted by Ricardo Davila (Member # 3854) on :
Craig,
I imagine that screw up was for Mr. Ohri.....Right?
I would have loved to be a fly on the wall, when he found out.
Ha !
Posted by Michael Clanton (Member # 2419) on :
"Fellowship of Christian Atheletes" Sandblasted mirror with handcut letters... didn't notice the extra "e" until finished, so I did the project again:
"Fellowship of Christan Athletes" made sure I spelled "Athletes" correct.... ooops forgot the "I" in christian... did the project again, this time I was extra careful to handcut and correctly spell those words...
"Fellowhip of Christian Athletes" ---I give up 3 days of handcutting stencils with an exact knife and carbon copy transfer onto vinyl mask, plus the time to sandblast each one Posted by Bob Sauls (Member # 11321) on :
On a 48" diameter easel display for a banquet honoring FSU Athletes who had made the grade academically. We applied vinyl letters one by one on an arc.Got a few letters out of sinc. We misspelled "ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE"
[ January 08, 2013, 11:11 AM: Message edited by: Bob Sauls ]
Posted by Curt Stenz (Member # 82) on :
8 - 24"x48" mdo signs for a repair shop.
No Pubic Parking, violators will be...
Posted by old paint (Member # 549) on :
4 x 8 metal sign for a DAV post. painted it and had to letter out DISABLED AMERICAN VETERANS just like that on one side and the logo to the right of it. got the sign done, guy put it up on the side of the building facing a busy street. cool. 3 YEARS LATER.......the local news did a piece on DAV............one of the cameramen spotted it, and told the guy who i painted the sign for... i had mis spelled VETERAN(and i is one).......i put VETRAN on the sign))))))
[ January 09, 2013, 12:53 AM: Message edited by: old paint ]
Posted by Bob Timmerman (Member # 2503) on :
One side of the sign.....Open to the Public..... the other.....Open to the Pubic. It was out about a week before anyone caught it
Posted by Michael Clanton (Member # 2419) on :
designed a t-shirt for a local school- their theme was "international" so we used a world map illustration, and then went in and labeled the continents, oceans, etc.
Not only did I misspell "arctic Ocean" as "ARTIC" ocean, but went on to misspell "Antarctica" as "ANTARTICA" as well... 300+ t-shirts and sweatshirts... the bad thing is, they didn't catch the first misspelling for a couple of days, and the second one a few days after that...
Posted by Michael Clanton (Member # 2419) on :
btw- we had to reprint the job...
Posted by William DeBekker (Member # 3848) on :
Made 50 Double Sided "Reality" Signs..
Posted by David Harding (Member # 108) on :
That was just an alternate reality...
Posted by Dave Sherby (Member # 698) on :
Ouch Michael. Three times on the same sign has to be some kind of record. (The kind you don't want)
I had to carve copy and graphics onto oak whiskey barrel tops for a big barbeque contest. They were to be used as trophies for first and second place, first place being "Grand Champion" and runner up being "Reserve Grand Champion" Second place ended up being carved Resrve Grand Champion, and was discovered just a few hours before they were due to be delivered. Luckily they had given me 6 barrel tops in case there were problems but I had to make a new file and get a new one carved and torched, and clear coated. Just made it.
[ January 09, 2013, 06:45 PM: Message edited by: Dave Sherby ]
Posted by Patrick Whatley (Member # 2008) on :
Spent the night locked in a shopping mall painting a barricade for a store that was going to open. Worked from 10:00pm to about 3:00am without a break. Only then did I realize that I'd painted SPROTS in 48" letters on the wall instead of SPORTS.
Laid it out on the computer, drew it out, traced it on the pounce machine, taped it to the wall, pounced it, stood back and looked at it one last time to make sure it was centered, and painted it without ever catching the misspelling.
Posted by Bill Davidson (Member # 531) on :
The van was leaving my shop, stopped him at the roll up door. Asked him to leave it overnight and I would put HIS phone number on the side in place of my own...... duh
Posted by Donald Miner (Member # 6472) on :
Oh well, maybe it's time to invent or adapt spell-check to exacto knives, lettering brushes, pens and pencils. Peace, Don
Posted by Jackson Smart (Member # 187) on :
I did a 3' x 16' 3/4 MDO sign for a local restaurant It had to go on the outside of a second floor deck which happened to be 30' over the rocks and water because the building was on the waterfront of the harbor. I had to have a couple of helpers sling it over the edge and hold it while I attached it to the wall. I had to hang out over the edge in a harness while swinging over the water. Got it all attached, finished the job and a couple of days later got a call from the owner saying that a customer who came in on the ferry from Victoria, BC told him it was misspelled. I had spelled it like this: RESTAURAUNT. Had to go over the side in a harness again, remove it and repaint it then go back over the side in a harness and re-install. Total loss of profit. Real scary hanging 30' feet over the rocks and water...Yikes! Now I triple check my spelling.
Yikes again!
Jackson
Posted by Preston McCall (Member # 351) on :
1n 1980, did a 40' x 4' board sign that was in terrible condition. Had to take it down with ladders! Then after major sanding, filling and repainting to read Brown Hardware, we went back up there on rented ladders to install it with lag bolts, up 35 feet in the air. Two days later, learned it was Browne Hardware with an E. Duh. It pays to not have partners.
Did 15 windows with 4x7 neon edge strips for a liquor store, all the way around the windows. simple deal, really. Turned it on and the lady said she wanted pink, not yellow. Duh....had the yellow ones for years, trying to sell them to someone else with no luck. Yellow is close to pink? It still paid to not have a partner.
Did a bank with 4.9% home loans, but on the wrong windows. It was on the windows of the next door neighbor, who was a stock broker. The guy was seriously upset when he came in on Monday morning. Did it on a Sunday when no one was there....Seriously upset his ticker tape.
You know, sometimes it just does not pay to get up in the morning.
Posted by Bill Lynch (Member # 3815) on :
Had a lot of amusing ones along the way(well not so amusing when it was painted, lot harder to fix than vinyl), but the worst was a street banner we did. It was for the local Literacy Volunteers who had a scrabble tournament fundraiser. The design was done with scrabble tiles spelling out the main copy. The "tiles" were printed on an Edge. I don't remember the exact misspelling, but a couple of the letters got reversed. No one noticed till it was up. We had it fixed before the end of the day, but not before it made the news and was the "Misspelling of the Year" a week later in the annual "Best of The Year" edition of the local magazine, complete with photo.
Posted by Michael Clanton (Member # 2419) on :
I didn't do it- but when I was in college, a town hired a sign guy from out of town to come in paint the town name on the water tower- for a couple of days the tower read: O-H-A-M-A ... instead of Omaha We got a big laugh out of it, and I'm glad it wasn't me!
Posted by Rick Sacks (Member # 379) on :
Big corrugated dark blue metal building, 20 feet up in the air, hot summer day in the sun, double coated white letters. I left out a letter in the middle of Fort Bragg Marine. I don't remember which letter any more. I do remember the hours rubbing out those letters with boiled oil getting the new building clean without any tale of my mistake showing.
Posted by Rick Sacks (Member # 379) on :
Down in Newport Beach, on Coast Hwy, in a busy area back in around 70-72 time frame, there was a massage parlor with a big front wall to letter. These places didn't have a reputation for being on the up and up either then. One of the tag lines said "Greeceian Body Wrap." When questioned about the spelling, Bennie asked "How do you spell Greece?" Needless to say, we fixed that wall.
Someday I'll tell the rest of that story
Posted by Bill Lynch (Member # 3815) on :
I've had several that were never noticed. "Kitchnette" on a billboard "Non-Alcholic" on a refrigerated case sign, this one has been there for 10 years. and more...
Posted by Bill Wood (Member # 6543) on :
A 2ft x 20 ft plastic face cost me a lot years ago. The sign was in the air ready to install.Guy gets out of his car and said..."you spelled it wrong" I was giving this restaurant more than they were paying for.
CLEMMONS VILLIAGE RESTAURANT
Posted by Douglas Hancock (Member # 29758) on :
Okay here is my best screwup. Customer supplied vinyl wall graphic for Allstate. I installed the hands upside down so it looked like they were pushing you away. I left the after hours job feeling good. Client called a day or two later and said I had messed up. The client even had a hard time telling what was wrong....I offered to buy or make another graphic and inatll it. He told me not to got another from AllstateHad to do it again.
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