posted
OK, what's your beef? Mine is K E R N I N G We can buy the most beautiful alphabets, type 'em in, and they look like heck! How hard is it to ungroup, eyeball the lettering, rearrange, and regroup? I have seen signs with overlapping letters, etc. Just because a computer makes "perfect" letters, it doesn't have human eyes. This CAN also apply to the "PLAN AHEAd" method of hand-lettering too. Love....Jill
Posts: 8834 | From: Butler, PA, USA | Registered: Jan 2001
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""Good judgment comes from experience; and a lot of that comes from bad judgment" - Will Rogers Posts: 3488 | From: Beautiful Newaygo, Michigan | Registered: Mar 2003
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Anything I deem as ugly which happens to be about 98% of the stuff out there. Some of my work is included in that figure too, whether restrained by budgets or something I did early on before developing more skill.
-------------------- "If I share all my wisdom I won't have any left for myself."
Mike Pipes stickerpimp.com Lake Havasu, AZ mike@stickerpimp.com Posts: 8746 | From: Lake Havasu, AZ USA | Registered: Jun 2000
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I have wayyyy to many to list but probably the worst is Brush Script all caps condensed 50 percent. Also big bad ass truckers with Pink lettering on there trucks!
Stevo
-------------------- Stevo Design Illustration Logos Sign Design Clip Art www.stevo-design.com Posts: 1680 | From: Edmonton Ab Canada EH! | Registered: May 2001
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gee, there's so many . .they're all my pets . . .
I'll try to list them order of agg'ervation, but they're all really number one. . . .
~Magnets as permanent signage
~The use of zip-change mobile sign frames as permanent signage
~Dislexic zip-change maintenance person
~Old English
~Arched script
~None, or the wrong landscaping around an expensive sign
~no margins
~too many type-styles on one sign
~using only one type style on a sign
~Over-doing an option, or worse, using all of them on one sign: ie: Positive and negative arches, with extended fading stretch, and drop shades, with extra condensing and over-extending
~Arguing with a customer over copy amount
There's more, but I'm getting depressed . . . .
-------------------- Signs Sweet Home Alabama
oneshot on chat
"Look like a girl, act like a lady, think like a man, work like a dog" Posts: 5758 | From: "Sweet Home" Alabama | Registered: Mar 2003
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Here's one that will send you screaming out of the shop.... All Caps, Old English, black copy, on an arch, with a red shade! AAAHHHHRRRGGGGG!!!!
-------------------- Jane Diaz Diaz Sign Art 628 W. Lincoln Ave. Pontiac, Il. 61764 815-844-7024 www.diazsignart.com Posts: 4102 | From: Pontiac, IL USA | Registered: Feb 1999
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During installs, someone comes up to you and says, "You spelled it wrong." or "Its crooked!"
You reach into the tool box and get stuck by an X-acto knife.
BUBBLES!!!!!!! (vinyl)
A customer who says, "If you do this one cheep, I'll let you do the other stores."
Brush is shedding.
Paint no longer has lead.
Paint sucks now! (did I say that one already? Thats OK beacuse it does.)
Vinyl gets stuck in the machine.
Dropping your tea on the keyboard.
RENT!
Transfer tape sticks to itself.
Paint underneith your fingernails.
Corrupted files.
The paint stain in the new truck.
Paint spills. (always someone elses fault)
Customer's deposit check bounces after you order the materials.
"I can't think of any more just off hand..."
-Rich
-------------------- Richard Bustamante Signs in the Pines www.signsinthepines.com Posts: 781 | From: Nevada City, California | Registered: Nov 1998
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""Good judgment comes from experience; and a lot of that comes from bad judgment" - Will Rogers Posts: 3488 | From: Beautiful Newaygo, Michigan | Registered: Mar 2003
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You design signage for a customer to their specifications. They say thats exactly what they want. Wait for the deposit and nothing happens.
Drive past a few weeks later and it's been done! NOTHING like the original concept Often cheap and nasty
Oh, and I do have a customer whom I put 30ft of vinyl lettering on his new company car. He keeps coming back for another little bit here, a few words there. Maybe $20 a time and wants it done on the spot. If he didn't spend thousands on the rest of his signage with me I would tell him to take a hike
""Good judgment comes from experience; and a lot of that comes from bad judgment" - Will Rogers Posts: 3488 | From: Beautiful Newaygo, Michigan | Registered: Mar 2003
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I don't like the word "Signage". Never have and probably never will.
It sounds like a disease. Kinda fits in with all the computer generated disease laden laid out signs I see.
I am going to go have a smoke now.
-------------------- Bruce Bowers
DrCAS Custom Lettering and Design Saint Cloud, Minnesota
"Things work out best for the people who make the best of the way things work out." - Art Linkletter Posts: 6451 | From: Saint Cloud, Minnesota | Registered: Jun 1999
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- Removing aged chrome or reflective vinyl from a vehicle. - Getting a bad check and not being able to reach customer. - Digital prints that are too busy to be effective or readable. - Losing a customer that you thought was loyal to you. - Computer glitches that shut your program down. - Forgetting to weld script letters before cutting. - A customer who will not call you back about a job you have quoted.
Judy
-------------------- Judy Pate Signs By Judy Albany, Georgia USA 229-435-6824
Live simply...Love generously...Care deeply...Speak kindly...Leave the rest to God. Posts: 2621 | From: Albany,GA,USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Slanted lettering on an arc, especially Script.
All caps script, old english or text.
Lettering styles that have no business identifying a business.....like All caps old english, including the phone number, on heavy construction equipment.
-------------------- Rove Gratz Gratz Signs 342 Walden Station Drive Macon, GA 31216 rovegratz@aol.com Home Page: http://rove-342.tripod.com Posts: 861 | From: Macon, GA 31216 | Registered: Jan 2004
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-------------------- Dana Blair Blair Signs Wooster, OH www.blairsigns.com
If sign makers go on strike, is there anything written on their picket signs? Posts: 835 | From: Wooster, OH, USA | Registered: Jul 1999
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The Postal Code on the sign or truck door, the fax no. on the truck door.
ANY sign or truck or??? (usually the bigger the worster...) that has the Co. or Ltd. or Inc. in same size as the Company Name, know what I mean...sometimes takes up 1/3 of the line!!! i feel better now.
John
-------------------- John Lennig / Big Top Sign Arts 5668 Ewart Street, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada bigtopya@hotmail.com 604.451.0006 Posts: 2184 | From: Burnaby, British Columbia,Canada | Registered: Nov 2001
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[ November 02, 2004, 10:51 PM: Message edited by: Ian Stewart-Koster ]
-------------------- "Stewey" on chat
"...there are no limits when you aim for perfection..." Jonathan Livingston Seagull Posts: 7014 | From: Highgrove via Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia | Registered: Dec 2002
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Not having my tool of choice within an arm's reach when I'm high up on a ladder.
Working on the sides of a truck at that awkward height. You don't know whether to oversit on a stool and or stand and hunch over.
Not having clean table space to work from when in another's bay.
Inadequate lighting.
And my #1 pet sign peeve.... BAD EYESIGHT. (reading glasses are the ultimate inconvenience. You need them, then you don't. Now do that back and forth at 100 mph constantly all day long.)
posted
Digital printing on vans,trucks,magnetics etc with some idiot sitting there with his medicated looking children on his lap, all forcing a smile so hard you wonder which one of them spent the longest in the birth canal, and a slogan he cleverly spent hours on that either says "call my daddy he'll fix your toilet" or "my pawpaw can fix your air conditioner".....it brings taste and professionalism down to a level lower than brush script on an arc ever could.
-------------------- Gavin Chachere Plotter in the garage,New Orleans La.
"Sgts Shugart and Gordon again request permission to rope down to crash site two" Posts: 1223 | From: new orleans.la. | Registered: Mar 2000
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The word "Phone" or "Tel." or even worse, "Ph." in front of what is obviously a phone number. DUH!
Using a period (123.4567) instead of a dash (123-4567) in a US phone number. Keep the euro format in Europe where it is customary. I believe Mike Stevens mentioned something along the lines of "cultural recognition". In the US, we instantly recognize 123-4567 as a phone number without any hesitation. Why mess with that just to be "different"?
Of course if you use a period, you better put the word "phone" in front of the number so people know what it is...
posted
Chrome vinyl lettering is getting really old but it's worse when they insist on Old English with black outline - the ENTIRE text, including phone number, weight specifications and unit number making it barely legible even with upper and lower case. This customer actually told me that he knows what he's talking about because he once had a girl friend who started her own sign shop.... yeah sure, that should make you an expert!
I'd done the town maintenance vehicles 9 years ago and they all held up so well the trucks fell apart first. I just caught a glance at the new dump truck. Whoever did it made the most **** poor attempt to "mimic" what I'd done imaginable.
Crooked, off center on the doors, two lines of type aren't centered to each other, outlines WAY too heavy, pinstriping substituted for 1/4 stripe tape....YUCK! Looks like town manager found someone to finally turn on that 4B he bought when he got the office 9 years ago.
Too bad they were clueless after that. Rapid
-------------------- Ray Rheaume Rapidfire Design 543 Brushwood Road North Haverhill, NH 03774 rapidfiredesign@hotmail.com 603-787-6803
I like my paint shaken, not stirred. Posts: 5648 | From: North Haverhill, New Hampshire | Registered: Apr 2003
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#1..I second Ian's post. Mis'placed and otherwi'se totally unneces'sary apostrophe's put before every 'single "S" on a 'sign. rrrrrgh!
#2.. Yard sale signs I have to get out of my car with a magnifying glass to read, cuz they wanted to make certain to list every single item on their sign.....next to a freeway!
#3.. Commercial signs designed by the perpetrators of number two.
#4.. A certain signpainter during my youth who used the same exact quickie script for every sign no matter if it were for a circus or a Lawyer.
#5..My own laziness at learning Corel and hand lettering. I'm too used to point and click!
-------------------- Bill Foshay Stephentown, NY ------------------------ "That's not a junkyard, It's my museum!" Posts: 40 | From: Stephentown, NY | Registered: Mar 2004
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When a client wants to see a proof/price for vehicle/trailer lettering, but hasn't received it yet... they insist on a proof, you make one up for them, when the vehicle/trailer finally arrives it's a different size then what they told you and there are doors/windows that send you back to the drawing board.
That, and "approved with changes, don't need to see a proof" (when the changes are quite significant)
-------------------- James Gerber Sun Signs RR4 Stratford, ON Posts: 6 | From: Stratford | Registered: Nov 2004
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everything above, esp - how much is a sign/banner? "nephew art" can you do it cheaper? money's no object, then only has a few hundred (just happened on political signs, whatever cost poll signs, $1800 was quote, got $400.) can you match other sign guy? (No, if I wanted to I would have called him!)
[ November 03, 2004, 03:20 PM: Message edited by: Michael Latham ]
-------------------- Michael A Latham Tee's Me Shirt & Sign 16462 Jefferson Davis Highway Colonial Heights Va. 804-835-3299 signdogopie@aol.com Posts: 379 | From: Colonial Heights, Virginia | Registered: Feb 2004
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So like, do people get into this frame of mind only when they need signs? or do they do this to anyone else?
Like, has anyone ever walked into a electronics shop and said "I'm planing on buying more than just this T.V. in the future, can you give me a deal? also, can you send me the bill and I'll pay it later?"
-------------------- James Gerber Sun Signs RR4 Stratford, ON Posts: 6 | From: Stratford | Registered: Nov 2004
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![[I Don t Know]](graemlins/dunno.gif)
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Some of my work is included in that figure too, whether restrained by budgets or something I did early on before developing more skill.
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Often cheap and nasty ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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