posted
After reading the post on sign bashing and the demise that Felix is going through on slow business, I found something that I never thought of...
and that is to take pics of the signs as Raymond Quick suggested and do a take on what might or could have been had you had the work...It gives an excellent example of your skills as a designer to showcase as well as a possible sale to a prospective client
I have been told I am a visionary...I can see 3-d and transform it like very few others can(what I have been told... ) but I have been lacking in the area of good design on computer and what a way to improve that skill but to use existing work and transform it while practising...and knowing that my subject matter might just be an intro into a new clients door!
This could then be compiled and presented to the local sign boards as parameters of good taste and poor taste...then to back it up by a lesson in good/versus bad layout...
Why can't we as letterheads compile a book of designs such as this that most of us have already done...put it into print...and use it as a sales tool or reference...promoting who we are and why we are different.
In quantity, a book that appears more personal than say a fancy colored book that is for sale, with more direct information to the client rather than the signmaker with names of the businesses represented there...what a compilation of Letterheads could do with it as a sales tool!...
What are your thoughts?
-------------------- Robert Beverly Arlington, Texas Posts: 1033 | From: Arlington, Texas | Registered: Jan 2001
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I have always wanted to see a book of signs not to steal designs but just to get ideas. I saw a sign gallery type book in a Barnes & Noble one time but I didn't buy it. Went back later and it was gone. I couldn't remember the name and the clerks were no help. It was mainly large signs signs but it did give me some ideas. The idea of having something to let customers look at as a guide is a good idea. Most customers in my area have never seen a wide variety of signage like dimensional letters, other than rectangular shaped signs, dimensional signs or any of the fancier type stuff and none are willing to take the leap into buying it. They just want to stick with the basic stuff like their neighbors signs. Maybe if they saw some different stuff they would be more interested.
-------------------- John Thompson JTT Graphics "The big guy with a little sign shop!" Royston/Hartwell Georgia jtt101@hotmail.com Posts: 626 | From: Royston Georgia | Registered: Feb 2002
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Good morning Robert - I think most people would be reluctant to use anything for selling other than a portfolio of their own work.
When I first started selling Peachtree Foamcraft signs, I would carry a copy of Signs of the Times that included Peachtree manufactured signs, but that was to demonstrate that the technology had national credibility. I stopped doing that once I had a few of my own out there to point to.
The other part is, what sells in Boston may not sell in Houston or San Francisco.
It's hard to beat a stack of old Signcraft magazines when noodling around for ideas. Vic G
-------------------- Victor Georgiou Danville, CA , USA Posts: 1746 | From: Danville, CA , USA | Registered: Dec 1998
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I do not know if this thread would be the one to mention this but here goes a story of a proactive sign writer who got himself quite a bit of business...
About 1980 (bad recession year), a company named Texas Tool & Fastener expanded from Austin into the Dallas/Fort Worth area. We built the signage for their distribution center. I commented to the regional manager on the high quality graphics on their delivery vans. He said their vans had formerly been atrocious and the company hadn't considered how bad they looked and he then told me how they got such a nice job done.
An enterprising sign writer took a picture of one of their vans and then did a drawing showing what he could do for them and showed up unannounced and without appointment at the corporate office with his drawings. They liked his idea, ended up adopting it as the corporate logo and had him letter their entire fleet, which also included striping the vans.
We could have duplicated it locally for their Dallas/Fort Worth needs but I did not even try to get the van lettering job, even though I had two good sign writers working for me. I had too much respect for the industriousness, originality, chutzpah and skill of the unnamed Austin sign writer to even try to get that part of the business.
There have been a number of posts regarding never giving a customer a drawing without a deposit. Sometimes, when the economy is bad, doing a drawing not only without a deposit but completely on speculation may work. Of course, normal cautions about actually leaving the drawing in the possession of the prospective customer would apply.
I added this post because a few folks in areas that are low on work may see their version of Texas Tool & Fastener driving about their local streets. They may be able to snag a customer who hadn't even thought of the impression they were making and the Letterhead may thus get a chance to help redesign his own neighborhood.
-------------------- David Harding A Sign of Excellence Carrollton, TX Posts: 5105 | From: Carrollton, TX, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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The three best examples of what you are suggesting here are "Signs of the Times" "Sign Craft" and "A Magazine About Letterheads".
I use mine all the time for references of good layout and design and better yet I'm not using someone elses work to sell my own work...thats what my personal portfolio is for.
[ June 29, 2002, 06:27 PM: Message edited by: Monte Jumper ]
-------------------- "Werks fer me...it'll werk fer you"
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
) but I have been lacking in the area of good design on computer and what a way to improve that skill but to use existing work and transform it while practising...and knowing that my subject matter might just be an intro into a new clients door!
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