I picked up a new customer today. He has quite a large fleet of trucks, 20 to 30 and five of them need lettering right now. So I went up and looked at what the old ones looked like because he wanted them to match... They were all hand lettered, I got excited because I havent gotten a chance to do much hand lettering.. Then he says to me, can you match them, I said sure !! But I want them in vinyl... Now why would you want painted letters done in vinyl and not paint?? Now dont get me wrong I love vinyl but it just doent make much sense to me...
owell I just figured I'd tell someone
Jason
Posted by Stephen Deveau (Member # 1305) on :
Jason
He may be thinking of the resale value on the units..
Some will allow you the prillage(SP) to work with paints as they will own it until the day it dies.
Others are looking at the value of trade ins!
Ask him about this matter first to see were he stands.
Give it a good One-Shot to let him know the advantage of paint!
Good Luck.
Posted by cheryl nordby (Member # 1100) on :
well hey......handletter what he wants....scan......and cut away!
Posted by Chris Lovelady (Member # 2540) on :
some thing i did in this instance is to take a good picture of it and scan it. as long as there is good contrast you will find this the quickest way. i used a polaroid instant cammera..again i was able to look at it right a way to see if there was any adjustments to be make it the shooting, then go right to the scanner with the best shot.
good luck this is not such a hard thing..depending on the lettering you might try the speed ball pen approach...you know, the size issue in hand lettering...experiment. if you can get the body of the letters vectorized then your tools will give you a good outline, drop shade ect. if he has a large fleet and lots of trucks to do, it will be worth the time to spend on it...like to here how this turns out for you!
P.S. tried to correct my spelling..if you see any more let me know.
[ February 07, 2002: Message edited by: Chris Lovelady ]
Posted by John Deaton III (Member # 925) on :
If the lettering job is not too old, you may be able to lay a piece of white pattern paper over it and do a rubbing. Usually, one shot has a slight raised edge to it on a vehicle. Use charcoal or a pencil on its side and rub slightly over the paper which is over the lettering. IT may give you enough of a pattern to then hand trace and work it out from there.
Posted by timi NC (Member # 576) on :
He may want some "continuity" in his advertising.Most franchises,...I'll use Mickey D's for instance have all thier signage exactly the same all over no matter what so the clientel identifies the signage with the business.If he has 20 or 30 trucks that means he has 20 or 30 ads out there on the highway,...no sense in having them half one way & half another. Then as Stephen says maybe he's got trade in value in mind.
Posted by Jason Davie (Member # 2172) on :
I have the lettering, I took my digital camera and took thes pictures and sent it into my software and its exact, imperfections and all and thats the way he wants it,(that is why I was wondering, he wants vinyl but also wants the imperfections of the old paint job) I do two of the trucks in the morning for him and the others on saturday
Thanks guys, I'll post pictures this weekend JasonD
Posted by Cam Bortz (Member # 55) on :
I would be thanking him. Hand lettering is great, its one of the things I do best, and hand lettering one or two matching trucks is fine, after that it gets old fast. This is an opportunity to make good money, turn the job around quickly, and use your hand-painting talents on one-off jobs that require your creativity. Some years ago I did a contract to handletter nineteen matching 45' trailors, and know of what I speak.
Posted by Jim & Chris hetzler (Member # 1709) on :
I pride myself on making my vinyl lettering look like it has been hand lettered. Many of my customers have to go up and touch it to see if it is vinyl or hand lettered. That is where my niche is in the market around here. Anyone can plop some fonts in a computer screen and print out but make a few sketches by hand, scan them in and tace it, add some cool detail and you have some pretty awesome looking stuff. BTW I have been hand lettering for over twenty years and still do a lot of that work but I like designing on the computer also. Works both ways.....
