Best Sign Making Books - ALLTIME

[CentralSigns]

What books do you think are the best to learn sign making out of. I've heard a few titles but not all the good ones. Any one have any ideas. My daughter wants to learn the business and I'm stumped for reading material.

 

[Rick]

What kind of signs?

 

[CentralSigns]

Any kind, backlit, billboard, dimentional, vehicle doors, and trucks. All sort of the same but different. Within the scope of a sign shop with a cutter and printer.

 

[Rick]

I guess that begs a few more questions, but for right now...

There is no specific book on sign making for a cutter and printer.

There are books that touch on it. Most information is in magazines and taught on the job.

If it were me, I would get subscriptions to:

Signcraft Magazine
Signs of the Times
Sign Business

The books I have are:
"Getting Started in the Sign Business" - The Editors of Signs of the Times (Basic Sign Business)
"Mastering Layout: On the Art of Eye Appeal" by Mike Stevens (Layout of signs)
"Vinyl Sign Techniques" by Jim Hingst (Slightly dated, good information of vinyl signs)

If my kid (I have 4 boys by the way) was interested in signs. I would train them the second they showed interest. Probably in design first... while they swept the floors, weeded some vinyl, and took out the trash. The only sign book I would have them read is Mastering Layout (at first), after that, any design book that put an emphasis on the design process and practicing the idea of conceptual thinking because the mechanics will come later.

I have quite a few books, ones I think are fun to look at and might widen out her skills (and your shops) are about graphic design, which is applicable to sign design:

Logo Design:

LogoLounge Series Volumes 1-5
LogoLounge Master Library Volume 1 (Volume 2 coming out soon)
Logo Design for Small Business
Logo Design for Small Business 2
Design Matters: Logos 01: An Essential Primer for Today's Competitive Market (v. 1)
Logo Design Workbook: A Hands-On Guide to Creating Logos
Letterhead and Logo Design 9
Letterhead and Logo Design 10
Letterhead and Logo Design 11
Logo Lab
The Secret Life of Logos: Behind the Design of 80 Great Logos

Type:

Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students
1,000 Type Treatments: From Script to Serif, Letterforms Used to Perfection

Retro:

New Vintage Type: Classic Fonts for the Digital Age
Hatch Show Print: The History of a Great American Poster Shop
Posters for the People: The Art of the WPA
Logo, Font & Lettering Bible
Euro Deco: Graphic Design Between the Wars
House Industries 10th Anniversary Book <---- Highly recommended, hard to find now
Then is Now: Sampling from the Past for Today's Graphics
Retro Graphics: A Visual Sourcebook to 100 Years of Graphic Design
Retro Style Graphics
Graphically Speaking: A Visual Lexicon... <---- Highly recommended
Tinspiration: The Art and Inspiration of the Fossil Tin


Design and designey books I dig:

The pixar movie books.
Walt Disney Imagineering: A Behind the Dreams Look at Making the Magic Real
Modern Dog: 20 Years of Poster Art
Gig Posters Volume 1: Rock Show Art of the 21st Century
Art of Modern Rock: The Poster Explosion
The 1000 Series collection... elements, type, retail, packaging, Music graphics, Greetings, bags tags and labels, restaurants are good.
OBEY: Supply & Demand - The Art of Shepard Fairey
Chromaphile
Vernaculis
Symptomatica
Got Your Nose
Izzy's Very Important Job
Big City
Kings Of The Road

 

[Rick]

More books on high end sign design (some may apply, at the very least something to think about when expanding services) are the following...

Signage Systems and Information Graphics: A Professional Sourcebook by Andreas Uebele
Signage and Wayfinding Design: A Complete Guide to Creating Environmental Graphic Design Systems by Chris Calori
The Wayfinding Handbook: Information Design for Public Places by David Gibson
Designing and Planning Environmental Graphics-Wayne Hunt,Gerry Rosentswieg
Urban Entertainment Graphics: Theme Parks & Entertainment Environments-Wayne Hunt
Environmental Graphics: Projects & Process: Projects & Process-Wayne Hunt
Wayfinding: Designing and Implementing Graphic Navigational Systems-Craig Berger
Architectural Signing and Graphics-John Follis,Dave Hammer
City Signs: Innovative Urban Graphics-Gail Deibler Finke
Urban Identities by Gail Deibler Finke
Festival Graphics by Gail Deibler Finke
You Are Here: Graphics That Direct, Explain & Entertain-Gail Deibler Finke

 

[CentralSigns]

Thanks Rick. A very comprehensive list. My daughter does do shop work, She has mastered installs well small ones, up to 4' by 4' pieces. Her weeding and is good and her eyes are better than mine. She can run Signlab and the plotter without wasting alot. She likes to read and I was looki ng for good resources for that. I got one old book practical sign shop by Bob Fitzgerald, Sign of Times Publishing, but it's older pre 1982. Good for sign making by brush.

Again thanks for the list.

 

[Rick]

and a website I highly recommend is:

http://www.illustrationclass.com/

 

[Charlie J]

Wow Rick that was a great post. I'll have to add those books to my xmas list this year.

 

[Craig Sjoquist]

this subject been up before in the last 6 mths. ..

Mike Stevens Mastering Layout ... has been the best all time book for the real basics of layout design

 

[Pat Whatley]

Thanks Rick....my wife can just see the vacation fund disappearing because of me going on another book binge.

 

[cgsigns_jamie]

Rick, do you have a text file with all these books listed so you can just copy and paste them into the forum?

Because if you type those out by hand each time someone asks then you really are "the man"

As always thanks for the great info... had to add a few of those titles to my Amazon cart.

 

[StopSignGraphics]

Plus 1 on Ricks list... I've got about 2/3 of those. The three that I seem to refer to constantly are:

Mike Steven's book: Mastering Layout
Leslie Carbaga's book: Logo, Font and Lettering Bible
and
LogoLounge Master Library Volume 1

If you want to buy just one for now, I'd probably recommend Carbaga's book. It's easy to read and covers working with bezier curves, design fundamentals and some history of the printing and the graphics industry.

~Chris

 

[Jillbeans]

Strong's Book of Design by Charles Strong
Atkinson Sign Painting by Frank Atkinson
Modern Lettering and Modern Lettering & Layout- Cecil Wade
Martin's Complete Ideas & 1000 Practical Show Card Layouts- HC Martin
(most of these are hard to find and the last two are in my "dream" library)
These are old layout books.
Love....Jill

 

[jimbug72]

Awesome thread! Dropping $200 on books today!

once again :signs101: