posted
just wondering what sort of percent of hand lettering all you guys do these days, iam heading back towards more hand lettering iam not doing as much work but my profits are better. and iam loving it every time i have a brush in my hand its like thearapy.... better than medatation.
-------------------- pete p&s signwise melbourne australia Posts: 4 | From: melbourne australia | Registered: Jul 2009
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Paint was, is, and will always be the correct way to letter in THIS shop.
That being said, I cut a bunch of vinyl, too. Bought our outfit years ago when it became apparent to me that if you were gonna have a viable business in the years to come, you better have access to it.
In the event that a customer is indecided, I point out to then that while I can do anything that I want, all MY stuff is always PAINTED.
-------------------- Ed The Signwerks 1951 SR 254 Orangeville, Pa. Posts: 199 | From: Orangeville, Pa. USA | Registered: Dec 2000
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I'm about 25% painted 75% vynull. I paint whenever I have the option to do so, but it's not always what my customers want. I am never sorry that I bought a plotter, and I don't miss the days of doing "real" sketches. But the best days are still the ones in which I get to paint. Love....Jill
Posts: 8834 | From: Butler, PA, USA | Registered: Jan 2001
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I paint everything I can. Don't like the changes in the "new" sign paints, but using more industrial enamels and some more acrylics.
This is what makes this profession "fun" for me; always has been, always will be. When I can't swing a brush anymore, I'll quit and pull the dirt over.
I do the vinyls to facilitate the needs of my customers who can't afford to spend the money; but it's been abused, and has taken a sharp turn toward cheapening our craft...just my opinion.
-------------------- Dale Feicke Grafix 714 East St. Mendenhall, MS 39114
"I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me." Posts: 2963 | From: Mendenhall, MS | Registered: Apr 1999
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Got the brushes out today (rare) didn't want to go through the hassle of outlining and shadowing with vinyl. I did hand letter a 12' by 40' wall last summer. I wouldn't mind a few of those each year.
-------------------- Wright Signs Wyandotte, Michigan Posts: 2785 | From: Wyandotte, MI USA | Registered: Jan 1999
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posted
I paint a lot of walls. In the shop, it's mostly vinyl or digital prints. Customers are always in a hurry! I also do a lot of sandblasted or carved signs. I love my router. John www.signgraphics1.com
-------------------- John Arnott El Cajon CA 619 596-9989 signgraphics1@aol.com http://www.signgraphics1.com Posts: 1443 | From: El Cajon CA usa | Registered: Dec 1998
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Just finished a job which took us 3 weeks, all with brushes- corro walls, background painted, letters painted & shaded- a redo of the job we did 16 years ago for the same customer, which was a redo of the 1902 scheme.
It was a really pleasent time- nice weather, shady workplace, gentle breeze...
(edited to add that being on corro, and up on scaffolding, and taking so long made it easy to accidentally underquote...)
[ May 12, 2010, 07:13 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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posted
I do alot of commercial mural work and paint quite a few walls here,... as for percentages the clients these days don't want to pay for hand lettering and really do not like the idea of waiting on paint to dry so its about 50/50,...I really don't do as much sign work as I used to as the market here is saturated with vinyl and digital print shops with three cities of over 250k ppl within thirty miles of each other,not to mention the other fifteen suburb communities and smaller townships.
-------------------- fly low...timi/NC is, Tim Barrow Barrow Art Signs Winston-Salem,NC Posts: 2224 | From: Winston-Salem,NC,USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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I ordered a couple of digitally printed sandwich signs for a frame last week. It was the first non-hand-paint job in over a year. I do almost everything by hand...mostly big windows and windshields. 170,000 windshields to date and still counting!
-------------------- Preston McCall 112 Rim Road Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 text: 5056607370 Posts: 1552 | From: Santa Fe, New Mexico | Registered: Nov 1998
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Paint or vinyl? As for me, it gets down to profitablity. Yeah, paint is fricken great, but if the customer can't afford a hand painted sign, graphics, etc. then we go vinyl. But if it's something that i can do in paint at a greater, greater, greater profit to me. Then I paint away freely. "Es un business" Even a Pimp doesn't sell all of his bit,,,women at the same price.
-------------------- Signs by Alicia Jennings (Mudflap Girl) Tacoma, WA Since 1987 Have Lipstick, will travel. Posts: 3814 | From: Tacoma, WA. U.S.A. | Registered: Dec 1999
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Look at the hands, especially fingernails. My nails are getting cleaner and cleaner. Soon maybe I will be able to wear a uniform to work like the "vinyl jockies" do!! I still wear paint spattered clothes.
-------------------- Drane Signs Sunshine Coast Nambour, Qld. dranesigns@bigpond.com Downunder "To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer" Posts: 965 | From: Nambour, Qld. Australia | Registered: Nov 1998
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murals are painted. signs are clearcoated or the backgrounds are sprayed. i dont hand letter anything anymore, no need in it PLUS the market here will not pay for it.
i still wear trashy clothes with paint all over them and latex gloves alot now. kinda like it better
-------------------- You ever notice how easily accessible people are when they are requiring your services but once they get invoice you can't reach them anymore
Most projects here are combos...painted illustrations with vinyl lettering mixed in, airbrushed vinyls, some hand lettering, vinyl lettering with painted pinstripes on trucks...stuff like that.
The bikers...I wont do vinyl on any and they know it. Love it when they come by.
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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Funny, isn't it. Pay all those thousands for a computer set up, and hand lettering with a few dollars of paint and thinner costs more! When you come right down to it, which is more profitable. I worked in a commercial sign shop and we generated 5 to 7, 50 gallon drums of trash per day, backing, transfer paper and that 75 percent waste of vinyl. Made my head spin. Over the same work with paint you might lose a cup of paint.
-------------------- Bill'n'Annie Davidson Heathcote, NSW, Aus. my Aussie wife, a Toohey's Old, my Holden Ute, Retired from the rat race! Posts: 309 | From: Heathcote, NSW, Australia | Registered: Nov 1998
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Well Nancy.....Opps wrong era..... Paint versus Vinyl.. I like what Jon posted.lol..... 99% of the vehicles we do are Leased, well, so if you paint them, it's a big expense at the end of the lease to take it off, and you better be careful you don't damage the paint... If you work by yourself with no employees and can get enough work painting then go for it.
-------------------- "Keep Positive"
SIGNS1st. Neil Butler Paradise, NF Posts: 6277 | From: St. John's NF Canada | Registered: Mar 1999
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-------------------- Frank Smith Frank Smith Signs Albany, NY www.franksmithsigns.com Posts: 807 | From: Albany, NY USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Neil, you make an EXCELLENT point in regards to leasing and vehicle lettering. Even if the vehicle isn't leased, the owner has removal in tne back of his mind. I probably only do three or four trucks a year in vinyl. I price it reasonable but even then it's not cheap enough I do have few customers that want paint and I happily oblige them. I also do a few restored vehicles, trucks, race cars etc. where hand lettering is required. We just don't have the space required to handle vinyl and the resulting inventory.
-------------------- George Perkins Millington,TN. goatwell@bigriver.net
"I started out with nothing and still have most of it left"
posted
Ed you said that you do a fair amount of work with Vinyl, and that you bought the system years ago to keep current and be competitive... but you also said any work that you do is always paint... I'm assuming like me, that you have employees who run the Vinyl end of things? I was finishing off a bike this morning and it was all paint and Airbrush and a little pinstriping, and while I was doing that my Staff were busy doing the Vinyl work, it was nice doing work the old way, and seeing other modern work being done in the same room.
-------------------- "Keep Positive"
SIGNS1st. Neil Butler Paradise, NF Posts: 6277 | From: St. John's NF Canada | Registered: Mar 1999
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Neil, I'm pretty much a one man show here at present. I'm the CEO, and the janitor. I guess that I'm jaded a little when it comes to vinyl... There are probably 6 vinyl cutters in basements and 1 car garages within a 15 mile radius of my shop.. all cranking out the crap that We all joke about from time to time... Script set in caps, bad clip art, lousy designs... all for less than what they probably paid for the promo vinyl that they all seem to use. After a year or so, they get bored, frustrated that they aren't making $hit, haven't kept enough money to buy more stock, so they sucker one of their friends into buying the outfit, and the cycle starts all over again. Every 6 months or so, someone comes in and says "Well, you have new competition, Joe BagO'Donuts bought a vinyl cutter and is working out of his house...". I realize that everybody has to start somewhere, but I know most of the people in my immediate area (I live in a small rural community here) and have a pretty good handle on what motivates most of them... Most people think that having a small business here is akin to having the keys to Fort Knox... My response, once I see repetative poor work from one of the fly-by-nights is always the same... "I have a drawer full of sharp knives in my kitchen, and it doesn't qualify me to be a butcher OR a surgeon. When it comes to signage, it doesn't matter if you use paint, vinyl, or Heinz Ketchup, if the design is bad, so is the finished product". In the course of my 28 years in this business, I've tried to instruct a dozen or more people who were interested in getting started in the sign business... Interested adults, people who drag a kid in who's interested in art... And have yet to produce another signmaker. When they realize that it's not something that they going to learn in a couple weeks, they loose interest. I've always maintained that if you wanna do this well, you have to wanna do it bad... And that's not what most want to hear. The mentality among most new wannabe vinyl jockeys is that once they have the technology, they have it all, and sadly, there is a percentage of people to whom price is everything, and they all seem to fall prey to the wanabes. And that's what is frustrating to me. I put a lot of thought and effort into every project. These days, I seldom fret about impressing the customer.. That's usually pretty easy, because they came here to get a certain look. Sorry if that sounds like a narcisism, but if they weren't quality minded, they would have gone to the guy how has the plotter in his basement. When I'm doing a job, If I need additional motivation, I draw it from the thought that even though that particular customer won't necessarily appreciate the extra effort and subtle nuances that I use to make it something special, somewhere down the line, another signmaker is gonna see it and recognize the care that went into the execution of that project, be it paint or vinyl. I take this deal pretty seriously, and I've been frustrated for a long time by the lack of professionalism of what I see coming out of a lot of Decal Mills... And that frustration has led to total burnout for me on a fairly recurring basis. I mean, what am I sweating the details for, no one else seems to...
This may be kind of rambling, and for that I apologize, but when I stop and look at the broader picture, it occurs to me that people can get vinyl anywhere... I try to offer something more, and more often than not, that's paint.
[ May 14, 2010, 12:41 PM: Message edited by: Ed Gregorowicz ]
-------------------- Ed The Signwerks 1951 SR 254 Orangeville, Pa. Posts: 199 | From: Orangeville, Pa. USA | Registered: Dec 2000
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95% paint here ..window splash, custom store front signs, and misc... I'm really not well educated on computer design programs ... just have a basic one with my cheap Chinese cutter my CorelDraw X3 is locked up in my desktop till I upgrade it..so not been able to learn.
posted
Ed,I did a search here on the talking phone book site and came up with over 250 shops that pay to list their phone number within 50 miles,...this does not include the other 100+ shops in a basement and or extra bedroom out there,...I'm not complaining mind you,...just stating the facts,...you can only slice one pie into so many thin pieces before the pieces no longer resemble a slice,..much less have enuf volume to be called a slice practically,....I'm not gonna fret about someone else's sign business anymore,..just focus on my own,....
-------------------- fly low...timi/NC is, Tim Barrow Barrow Art Signs Winston-Salem,NC Posts: 2224 | From: Winston-Salem,NC,USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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I'm sorry if it seemed like my rant was centered on fretting over someone else's business, It was just a release of pent up frustration, I guess, for the lack of a better term. I used to just roll along pretty well, never figured I was gonna get rich in this business, but I just enjoyed going to work every day and doing what I really enjoyed, all the while believing that it mattered.... Now, to borrow your pie slice analogy, I occasionally find myself struggling, and I get frustrated by the fact that the notion that quality matters, one that I've held on to for so long, may not necessarily be valid anymore. And that realization has taken a lot of the joy out of this whole deal for me. There are a lot of times, and believe me, they are more and more frequent, that I think I'd be better off working for someone else, just cranking out jobs, without fussing over the whole "Running the Business" thing. To be honest, I'm probably a lot better sign maker than a businessman....
Anyone else ever daydream about trying out that whole Rob Cooper thing, and just kinda travel from shop to shop???
[ May 14, 2010, 01:31 PM: Message edited by: Ed Gregorowicz ]
-------------------- Ed The Signwerks 1951 SR 254 Orangeville, Pa. Posts: 199 | From: Orangeville, Pa. USA | Registered: Dec 2000
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I hear you Ed I really do.... A few months ago I posted the wrap job on a Pick up that I lost to an Experienced sign shop, my quote was for $1800, most of you here said that you would want that and more.. these Bozos did the Job for 900 bux, and I hope that they read this forum because I have no respect for them... because they don't respect themselves... anyway the job got done.. this is for a restaurant across the street from me. Last week the owners emailed me and asked for me to do a set of magnetics... red flags first went up, he continued to say, don't worry I'm not going anywhere else, I learned my lesson from the last Job. How many times have this happened to me with this cut throat other business.. I don't wish ill will to anyone, but these guys need some serious education on pricing and application.
-------------------- "Keep Positive"
SIGNS1st. Neil Butler Paradise, NF Posts: 6277 | From: St. John's NF Canada | Registered: Mar 1999
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Well being I am still new and not getting calls for paint and also avoiding it some to learn more first I am painting where I can and feel confident to but mostly vinyl. I am still learning sign layout but I am like Ed I obcess over the details of design and am most interested in that as I think nothing works without good design. I am also glad you ranted about people quiting because I started three years ago and am very interested in signs and feel I know squat so far. Ideally I will letter and explore my new airbrush and maybe even pin strip. All of that feels familiar even though I don't know how to do them yet.
posted
I went for almost ten years in denial before I finally read the writing on the wall and realized the software companies are not going to quit selling more software cheaper and the plotter makers are not going to raise the prices on plotters,much less try to sell less units,...it just ain't in their business plan,..I can see digital printing dropping in startup prices drastically over the next decade,...I watched my income dwindle to the point it became a point of embarrassment and humiliation,....twenty years ago I was grossing well over a 100k a year,and that was with the profit margin for paint no vinyl included..last year I didn't profit enough to file taxes,thank God there is only me to support in my world now and my children are all grown and out of the nest,.Once again,I'm not complaining, just stating the facts,..while I might not be as good a businessman as I am an artist it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that this is rapidly becoming an exercise in insanity,(the definition of insanity is to try doing the same thing over and over the same way and expecting different results)I'm not going to let it defeat me,....last month I enrolled in a course of study at `a local tech school for internet security,once done in 18 -20 months I can get a job making almost 50k a year` and do signs part time like I've already been doing for the past couple of years,..let the daydreamers and newcomers fight over that imaginary paper thin slice of almost non existant pie the plotter salesman and software salesman promised, at my age it just isn't worth the stress involved. Not tryin' to discourage anyone and or gripe about the economic situation here, just tryin' to adapt and survive,....It would seem to me easier to be a sucessful part-time signman than a failure as a full time signman,..just my 2 cents not wanting to discourage or rain on anyone's parade here,I envy no man with a storefront business in today's economy,...
[ May 14, 2010, 02:47 PM: Message edited by: Tim Barrow ]
-------------------- fly low...timi/NC is, Tim Barrow Barrow Art Signs Winston-Salem,NC Posts: 2224 | From: Winston-Salem,NC,USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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