- How
tall should my sign lettering
be?
The rules-of-thumb for lettering height (as it relates to
visibility and readability) are as follows. 3M™ says
you can read a distance of twenty-five feet for every
inch of letter height. LetterBank™ says you will
find wording to be eye-catching no more than roughly ten
feet per inch in capital letter height. From this we can
determine that average block lettering of four inches
will be readable from 100 feet away, while eye-catching
from no more than forty feet distance.
Fancy styles and script or decorative styles will reduce
the distances, as will low-contrast
- color
combinations, such as beige on white, or red on
black.
Is
a banner considered an appropriate temporary tradeshow
backdrop for my startup
company?
I don't have too much money to spend. Banners can be used
creatively to solve temporary and "instant" display uses.
LetterBank created a solution for Upper Crust Biscotti
Company, with a three vertical banner display concept.
Each of the three banners were designed with the black,
gold and white logo in the center, for an attractive, yet
subtle, repeating message of product identification. The
vertical, or tall banners were approximately 7 feet tall
and almost three feet wide. They were created with a pole
sleeve along the top seam and a burgee, or bi-angular cut
bottom to make it fancy. The color Ivory was chosen for
the fabric to complement the upscale image. All three
banners were mounted onto a gold curtain
rod to finish the look. Solution: a relatively
inexpensive, easily transportable, low maintenance
solution for Upper Crust Company.
Which
style of type is the best for my
sign?
While many styles are probably suitable, certain styles
have characteristics that may work to your benefit, some
may actually cost you business. Franchise sign shops seem
to be the worst offenders, as the most recent "comers" to
the business of sign design. They may offer ten or twenty
styles which may seem interchangeable to the untrained
clerk. Nothing could be further from fact. With over
2,000 typestyles, The LetterBank creates a look and feel
of success in sign design. The appropriate use of a
"modern" script style, like Cornet, could complement a
"retro", or 1950s-looking salon, while it would spell
disaster for a "strong" image desirable by contractor
supply businesses. For a store seeking to promote an
avant garde, progressive style, Mistral or a calligraphic
noveau style might be more appropriate. A
testosterone-laden choice might be Publicity
Gothic.
Can
I get my design made into a
sign?
Many service bureaus now provide professional
reproduction of single-, multiple-color and
four-color-process signs and posters. If your artwork or
design needs to last a long time, your choices include a
uv-laminated digital image, scotchprint, duratrans, or
other output formats. For outdoor use, the expected
"life" of the sign is greatly reduced. Vinyl sign
material is best for extended-duration outdoor signs, and
is most cost-effective for limited quantities, such as
less than 15 signs. Longer runs may be best made as
screenprinted and digitally imaged signs. To make a sign
from your design,
we need to go one of three ways. We can scan in your
original artwork, we can read you disk file saved in the
proper format and we can reproduce your layout or format
somewhat faithfully through our art
department.
Which
color combinations work
best?
Tests
by researchers at ophthalmic universities and other
independent agencies have determined the following
combinations are best for easy reading:
Red
on White, Black on Yellow and Black on fluorescent
("Day-Glow")Yellow. Additional tests show that one
short
sentence is more likely to be read and understood,
compared to a sign that lists menu-style options, or in
excess of two sentences or thoughts together.
How
long does it take to make my
sign?
Average
fabrication and production times vary according to these
factors: 1-How many alike are being made? 2-How many
different colors are on the sign(s)? 3- How large is the
finished sign? 4-How detailed is the artwork or graphic?
5-Did you request a proof? Add these to the average
production time of one-to-two days for banners, flags and
preprinted items, seven-to-twelve
days for
screenprinted realty or site signs and political posters,
decals and magnetic signs, and around four days for vinyl
magnetic signs and individual realty and site signs. RTA,
or Ready-to-apply lettering usually averages one or two
days' time.
I
made a design on my computer. Can you make a sign from
it? LetterBank
can work with many formats. We need VECTORED POSTSCRIPT
OUTLINES to drive our plotter. You can generate the
vectored outlines in technical programs such as Adobe
Illustrator (our first choice), MacroMind FreeHand,
CorelDRAW!
and others. Otherwise, we can accept a very-high
resolution TIFF file to reproduce your art or design.
Photographic and full-color designs are reproduced by
digital imaging, and require often large TIFF and JPEG
files. Please ask for assistance when considering the
larger file sizes.
How
do I send you my computer design to make into a sign (or
decals)? We
currently accept files by email (send to
"signs@letterbank.com" and send a fax order verification
to (805) 473-7544) and on removable media: Syquest 270meg
disks, Zip 100meg disks and 3.5" "floppy" disks.
If
there is a question that we did not answer here for you,
please email
our technical support
staff
for assistance.
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