Common signs

[nashvillesigns]

As a sign maker, we all have struggled to eke more out our material. We all want to minimize waste when certain jobs are at odd sizes on our printer, router, laminator and chop saws.

This question is related to printing on a wide format printer, as 54" rolls are great to use, but have tons of letter over space when printing.
1. what "common signs" would you print with those odd jobs?

Real estate signage, open house, at 18"x24"
my quick answer are stockpiling up on my customers real estate signs, if the area fits. they always need new ones every year, so, why not get ahead?

Estate sale signs, at 12"x18' or 18"x24"
these never go out of style...

what are some of yours??

-Mosher

 

[Billct2]

On the printer sometimes I'll put some small versions of clients logo, bumper sticker or window decal size on the edges and give them to them as a bonus.

 

[Andy D]

The truth... typically nothing. I nest the jobs needed the best I can and don't worry about the drop.
If I had to pick something it would be standard generic parking lot signs like "No admittance " "park at your own risk" & "Handicap parking".

 

[shoresigns]

We try to be as efficient as we can with our materials, but honestly with most materials it would be far more costly for us to waste time thinking of random things to print on the wasted space next to a job.

 

[BIG EASY DOES IT]

Depends on material. If it's reflective we throw some standard parking signs. or handicap signs as Andy said. If it's a white vinyl job I have a couple files of different sizes of our company logo. I will find something that fits and throw it on real quick. Then you have a small stack of pre printed stickers with reg marks. Whenever we need more all you have to do is cut. Usually you will end up with something like 11" or 8" leftover. So I make sure to have special print and cut files just for the really skinny areas. Maybe I get a stack of ten printed in a month. Then I'll set the plotter up and cut all together. Smaller then 8" and I throw it away.

 

[ExecuPrintGS]

The truth... typically nothing. I nest the jobs needed the best I can and don't worry about the drop.
If I had to pick something it would be standard generic parking lot signs like "No admittance " "park at your own risk" & "Handicap parking".

Same as this /\
We nest jobs the best we can and though we don't want to be wasteful, with how tight space is around here we don't keep a lot of "scraps" or "blanks" just because.
The only exception is 6"x24" coroplast sign riders for our real estate customers, i cut those to size blank and have a couple hundred because when they order them its nice to not have to cut from a full sheet of coroplast.
Besides that, if i have space and i'm cutting a full sheet of dibond we only keep pieced 24"x36" 18"x24" and 12"x18" anything that cant make a sign that size is tossed.

 

[Andy D]

Same as this /\
We nest jobs the best we can and though we don't want to be wasteful, with how tight space is around here we don't keep a lot of "scraps" or "blanks" just because.
The only exception is 6"x24" coroplast sign riders for our real estate customers, i cut those to size blank and have a couple hundred because when they order them its nice to not have to cut from a full sheet of coroplast.
Besides that, if i have space and i'm cutting a full sheet of dibond we only keep pieced 24"x36" 18"x24" and 12"x18" anything that cant make a sign that size is tossed.

Not really the same thing but, the 1st sign shop I worked at was literally a "Mom and Pop" shop, and the wife had a large area dedicated to hanging all these vinyl drop pieces on hangers
and she wanted me to remove transfer tape carefully so that it could be reused several times, never mind that it took three times as long to make a sign.

 

[rjssigns]

We account for the non print area as a percentage of yield. Otherwise I'll print shipping labels, stock labels, etc...

 

[bob]

I charge for media unrolled no matter how much or little of it gets printed. My lack of interest in what happens to the drop approaches total thus it goes in the trash. It's been paid for. Handsomely. I wouldn't waste the ink or the time printing spec signs on the drop.

Perhaps this attitude comes in reaction to one mom and pop print shop where I worked back before the most of you were born. If you looked in the dictionary under cheapskates there's be a picture of these two. This was an offset and cold type letterpress shop. The wife save anything and everything, string , wrapping paper, whatever. Worse, this was back in the days of Arttype, letters printed on clear on a backing that you cut out and stuck on your layout. Use primarily for specimen type faces that we didn't have in cold type for offset jobs. After any job that required Arttype, she'd pick the individual letters off and stick them back on the sheet. The husband would save the developer and fixer solutions in jugs after any offset camera work and use them until they were the color of and effective as dishwater. He'd patch and re-use camera mask sheets. The both of them spent far more time, which equals money, trying to save and re-use everything than it ever saved them. What a pair.

 

[player]

Years ago I saved all the off-cuts of plotter vinyl upstairs in our mezzanine. When I moved 10 years later I threw it all in the dumpster. Rarely it did help to have a scrap of a certain colour we had used before but with printing vinyl out it goes.

 

[2B]

I charge for media unrolled no matter how much or little of it gets printed. My lack of interest in what happens to the drop approaches total thus it goes in the trash. It's been paid for. Handsomely. I wouldn't waste the ink or the time printing spec signs on the drop.

Signs365 follows this same practice both for roll and rigid.

and its a practice we are changing over to, much more user friendly

 

[FireSprint.com]

You really can waste alot of time and talent by trying to sell the drop somehow; however, I have a few ideas...

Why not hitch your wagon to a local non-profit or three and run their logo or something they need in the blank space. You could even put a little "Donated By:" on there and use it to help your business. This kind of thing pays dividends both for you wallet and your soul.

Or you could make "Great Job" type stickers and signs for teachers to give to students. If you have kids in school, this is a great in for you. Who knows when the little giveaways might end up getting you a nice order.

What we try to do is run self promo and samples. It's easy to get a little hesitant giving away samples to customers, but why not when you were just going to throw the material away anyway.

 

[Andy D]

^^ good ideas ^^ I have also always meant to keep reflective drop to cut into
strips and let my local elementary school give them to the kids to add to their costumes
on Halloween.

 

[Tom Dalton]

It also depends on what your market is. If you're doing a lot of real estate signs, then maybe make riders like "open house" and "price reduced". If your doing a lot for your local schools, then school mascot stickers.

-Tom
SignsDirect

 

[ChaseO]

I've tried stocking up on parking and real estate signs and it never works out. People always want a different color, a different size, an arrow, or whatever, so these pre-printed signs end up collecting dust. The main thing I try to do to prevent waste is stock up on different size (printer) media to minimize waste. On the plotter with colored vinyl, I do save scraps, but I too end up throwing away a lot of it after never finding a use for it.