posted
this is also not a complaint..want to clairify 1st off.......just whats going on in the market. went out yesterday to hang 2 8' x 8' metal signs that my partner(we are not in one business hes his and mine is mine, but we do lot of jobs together) painted both of them, one is a big pepsi logo and the other was the local pepsi dist. logo. now this is where it gets good....we are hangin the signs in the truck checkin bays. the guy who is the checker-iner....tell me if he had that logo in an eps he could cut it.....so i said cut it?....he tells me they got vinyl express cutter and softwear in the building so he can make little corplast signs to stick up around the shop and for banners they GIVE away.......and asked me if i had the logo in eps..cause the program he got(vinyl express) can only use eps's. point bein here is... iam there with my "sign shop on wheels" and this big company got some guy whos is makin a wage as the "truck checker iner"....and he is also the sign maker......but they cant get these big signs done any other way then with paint...hehehehehhehehehehehhe
-------------------- joe pribish-A SIGN MINT 2811 longleaf Dr. pensacola, fl 32526 850-637-1519 BEWARE THE TRUTH.....YOU MAY NOT LIKE WHAT YOU FIND Posts: 11582 | From: pensacola, fl. usa | Registered: Nov 1998
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OP, go to the local beer distributor. They all have in house sign shops now. Bars don't buy signs anymore. They even do lit signs. The cheaper and easier machines get the more of this you will see. Just keep pushing a brush, most of them can't do that.
-------------------- Rob Larkham Rob Larkham Signs & Lettering 21 Middlefield Road Chester, MA. 01011
413-354-0287 Posts: 517 | From: Chester, MA | Registered: May 2001
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Rob, I was gonna tell Joe the same thing. One of our local distributors has print and cut. Their "designer" if you would, uses Print Shop Deluxe. He puts a bulky pictoral type border around everything. My 10 yr. old grand-daughter does much better designing! The sad thing is that the bar owners think these things are "pretty!" Tacky tacky tacky! Then they tell you that your prices are unreal compared to free. I told a guy last week, "your eyes, hurt em if you want to."
-------------------- Kathy Joiner River Road Graphics 41628 River Road Ponchatoula, La.70454
Old enough to know better...Too young to resist. Posts: 1891 | From: Ponchatoula, LA | Registered: Nov 2000
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3 years ago when i was in sarasota the bud dist. got their setup...and asked anothe sign friend of mine(who was doing all the stuff for the bud dist)to come up there and show their $6 an hour employee how to use the equipment. you know what he told em....ronnie it wasnt the pepesi logo it was the "local dist logo".....
[ February 08, 2002: Message edited by: old paint ]
-------------------- joe pribish-A SIGN MINT 2811 longleaf Dr. pensacola, fl 32526 850-637-1519 BEWARE THE TRUTH.....YOU MAY NOT LIKE WHAT YOU FIND Posts: 11582 | From: pensacola, fl. usa | Registered: Nov 1998
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I used to work for a beer distributor, I was hired to paint nice little letters on all their prefab signs and ended up pre selling beer (started when they were short handed one time).
What I can tell you about a majority of the store owners getting these "free" signs is that they dont care what it looks like, and frankly wouldnt pay diddly to have one unless it was free.
Most of the distributors now have the equipment to do it in my area now and mainly because of the shortage of sales people who could paint a good sign on their own. I dont worry AT ALL about it biting into my business, because believe me, after having dealt with these store owners, I dont want that type of clientel.
As for the guy asking for an eps, I have to laugh! If he is not bright enough to ask the district rep of pepsi for it, offer to scan and vectorize it for him at a hefty sum and then go pick it up off one of the logo sites around the net and put it on disk for him
posted
it wasnt the pepsi logo guys....its another logo that has a totally different name and design.....my partner painted it on the 8'x 8' ....and all he had to work with was a copy of it....
-------------------- joe pribish-A SIGN MINT 2811 longleaf Dr. pensacola, fl 32526 850-637-1519 BEWARE THE TRUTH.....YOU MAY NOT LIKE WHAT YOU FIND Posts: 11582 | From: pensacola, fl. usa | Registered: Nov 1998
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I was doing some work for the city lately, and the guy that hired me informed me that one of 'his' guys would be watching me to learn how to install graphics so they could do it on their own.
I was ready. A guy indeed did show up showering me with alot of questions. He first started with the standard, "How did you learn all this, how long you been in biz?" etc. etc. etc. When he got to technique questions, I then stopped my work and I kindly informed him that I did my best work when I wasn't answering questions, but if they'd like some training, I'd be happy to come in another day for x$$ an hr to train him.
He apologized for holding me up and stood well into the background after that. LOL!
Since then, the city has hired me several times over for jobs in that same area, so obviously the guy in the background didn't get enough 'training' from me.
posted
In 1980 I was working in the "Advertising Dept." Sign Installer(honcho)for Coke. Also did a lot of PRIVILEDGE PANELS lettering on electric "pan faces" along with some wall letering Was able to meet some of the sub-contractor WALL DOGS and the group of sign painters from Pepsi Of course with that,came the CUSTOM stuff I was able to "snap" after hours! All and all this was a valueable experiance at a time in my life(being new to area) Made great friends,good business contacts,lots of "Practice Time" NATURALLY the computers were coming of age. Change was coming,and I was changing with the times. THIS IS NOT A "NEW" THING
I was under the impression that this was common knowledge in the sign trade [ February 09, 2002: Message edited by: PKing ]
[ February 09, 2002: Message edited by: PKing ]
-------------------- PKing is Pat King The Professor of SIGNOLOGY Posts: 3113 | From: Pompano Beach, FL. USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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My landlord also owns a casino in Deadwood, he was showing me a Budwieser showcard hanging in his place that was PRINTED by them. Really nice layout, zillion colors, etc. I'm used to the distributors makin banners, but now it looks like they are biting into the printers market as well.
Exactly Rob- Just keep pushin the air/brush, VE VILL VIN DA WAR!
[ February 09, 2002: Message edited by: Steve Barba ]
-------------------- "B0LT" on the chat room thing.
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Ok, I know I'm going to get flamed for this but here goes.
I have 20 years with a local Bud distributor. Started driving a truck and worked my way up to cleaning beer lines and hanging all the advertisment including neon repair. Since I have fairly nice hand writing about 10 years ago they had me make all the price cards and banners with big markers. Before that we used the pre-made stick-on numbers so there never was an outside sign shop involved, at least with the company I work for. A-B wants their signs to look the same accross the country and wanted each distributor to have a sign shop. The artwork we use is designed by A-B to keep it consistant accross the country and keep control over their logos (correct colors, ect...) I work 40 to 50 hours a week doing this job and am very carefull not to take away paying jobs from a sign shop. (I have a sign shop at home and have for about 5 years)
"We use outside sign shops as much as we ever did" We don't and never have had a bucket truck. We have many 4 x 4 signs 20 foot poles which often need repaired, and I don't think the A-B sign shops will ever be putting up their own billboards, sandblasting, carving, goldleafing, etc...
Most of our signage is temporary (2 weeks to a month), advertising an upcoming event or sale. We don't make it if we are just "providing a free sign" I would rather see our material cut in vinyl, looking much better than the chicken scratching on some of our competitors material or even my own handwriting.
Our competitors are slowly getting equipment. One of ours has a vinyl cutter but no printer and another has a printer but no cutter. I've heard Coke, Pepsi and even Wal-Mart are putting sign shops in their facilities. Is this a bad thing?? I don't think so, it will hopefully make their stuff look better than before.
Bottom line: "Keeping a consitant image"
-------------------- Ace Graphics & Printing Camdenton, MO. USA
posted
Joe Smith, one of my sign painting instructors at St. Paul Tech. was also a full-time sign painter for a large liquor distributor. As I recall, free signs wer an incentive to buy your booze from them. They were switching to computer about the time he retired.
posted
Last summer the local beer dstributer stopped in and said that they needed one of they're pre-printed banners lettered asap. The area was about 3x6 that they needed the copy for. I told them $65 and they backstepped bigtime. Said they had they're own "signcutter" but they were out of vinyl. I gave them 7' of black and said to drop off a case of beer. Two hours later they show up with the beer. I ask them how it came out. They said there cutter tore up the vinly and they couldn't use it. I volunteered to help them out at this time but they just left the beer and took off. ...well, the beer was good anyhow....
-------------------- Bill Modzel Mod-Zel screen Printing Traverse city, MI modzel@sbcglobal.net Posts: 1358 | From: Traverse City, MI | Registered: Nov 1998
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SONGPAINTER Original Sign Music by Sign People NOW AVAILABLE on CD and the proceeds go to Letterville's favorite charity! Click Here for Sound Clips! Posts: 1974 | From: Orleans, MA, Cape Cod, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Go to the New Office Depot stores and see them do banners, and coro and soon to be,, large color printing, sheesh. They are already raping the local printers. But, thier work is not what is known as fine ..... Go to some Sams clubs and see snap sign "signs like this CHEAP" all over the place. its already here.....
-------------------- Leaper of Tall buildings.. If you find my posts divisive or otherwise snarky please ignore them. If you do not know how then PM me about it and I will demonstrate. Posts: 5278 | From: Im a nowhere man | Registered: Jul 2001
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I tell the potential client who points to a Coke or Pepsi supplied banner to read it. When they read their name, I tell them they are wrong. When they ask "Why", I tell them the reader is first seeing that first third of the banner that has the distributors logo and everything else os secondary. So do get it at all, because they squeak and only paided $25. Others start to see the reality. The Pepsi distributor here has piles of banners and rolls of pre-cut letters and numbers.
I heard what you said and he wanted somfin for nothin...right!? your buddy projected the logo and hand painted it(dist. logo) right?...well i put the beer dist. and soft drink dist. right up there with the car dealership...lol.
i use to do for the local dist. beer and soft drink and did the quicky lettering 1$ word. and they useually had a pile of them and always wanted them yesterday!but the work went fast and make money at them, even did silkscreened print case cards and statics for the glass coolers but as every one here has said "got a computer" and was there own in house sign shop. they had the nerve to ask me to close my shop and come work for them!....any ways. some people's children hang in there Paint!
chris
-------------------- "We have been making house calls since 1992"
Chris Lovelady Vital Signs
NOW WITH 2 LOCATIONS! Tallahassee, Florida Thomasville, Ga.
You have to get them in pnt.hahahahah
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