Here are the photos I took for a job I did for a middle school in Wyoming!!!

[briankb]

Hi,

I have been working on my business (a design company and now getting into signs/printing) for over 8 years. My two business partners and I have never taken a dime from the government or anyone else. You on the other hand seem to have been able to wrangle up quite a lot of nice equipment. Do you have a silver spoon?

Like others have suggested you should post your crap and take the constructive criticism. To be honest I would really like to know the secret on how you sustain a business with that level of design work. Obvisouly you must have some amazing business acumin or something. So I propose a trade. Give us your business secrets and we will help you on design. I would start with having you get a book called "The Non-Designer's Design Book: Design and Typographic Principles for the Visual Novice (Paperback)" pick it up used at Amazon for $4 http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Typographic-Principles/dp/1566091594

Let's assume you have a ton of talent. That talent needs to be fed with the knowledge of other seasoned designers so go feast! :-D

 

[gnemmas]

Brian, design skills & business operation are two separate matters. Great designers are usually sucks at running business. (starving artists). A good businessman can always hire designers (Fast Signs, etc.) A good designer can hire business manager as well.

We just have to know ourselves. Limits & potential.

 

[Bigdawg]

deleted.... I never took any graphic art class and feel that I am very talented. ... deleted..

But you posted it up and asked what we thought... and most told ya'... so how do you know you are very talented? Not saying you aren't... but if you are... let's see some of your work

And no one gave me jack. Period. I paid for each piece of equipment as I could afford it... some of it pretty crappy and old but it did the job. Your equipment ain't got a darn thing to do with your design skills... Silver spoon my a$$...

So why don't you try starting over... a little... and post up some of your designs? Just a thought...

 

[Eddie Gallivant]

lol synergy

 

[PhatWall]

sorry if i affended anyone here. Thank you everyone for your responces and critisism. I am not sure if you were serious or sarcastic about business info. basicly I got a 10k loan with no co-signer to pay for my website and software developement. My software will allow you to custom design murals and wall wraps. my website is where artests can upload their graphics and designes into their profile. From here the pictures are aranged into an online art gallery. from here memebers can purchase designes for a fee. the artist who posted the designes get 70% of the sale. on the website members can also upload their designes that were created with the software. once uploaded the user picks the textured vinyl of choice and orders the mural. Phatwall then takes those designes and prints them on vinyl and ships them off to the customer. I then took my business plan and applied for a 23k loan to purchase my equiptment. I designed every aspect of my business. I feel that I have done very well so far.

 

[PhatWall]

every loan i have gotten was because of my business plan and my ambision. My business plan made it into the 10 finalists in a national business plan.

 

[SignManiac]

On offense here, but I would invest in a good spell checker also. They come in handy when writing business plans. Not to be a nit picker but you still seem to be defending yourself again. Thick skin goes a long way to self improvement.

 

[briankb]

I was serious and thanks for the info, very useful information.

I don't think you have offended anyone. However PLEASE check your grammar and spelling. It's very poor and is not helping your persona here at all. This isn't a chat so those things do actually matter. Especially in a few years when your posts are indexed and referenced by others who are looking at your website or company. Switch to Firefox or Google's Chrome web browser which both have automatic spell checkers for text fields and forms.

I'm a business guy and not a designer. I do happen to have an "eye" for design and can spot crap or gold. I can make a sign if it's simple and is only layout. I leave creative design to my two business partners who are very skilled at creative graphic design. They leave the thinkin' to me. It seems to work for us.

You seem like you are more on my side in the creative THINKER vs creative designer brain. Embrace your strengths and like I say a lot on this forum. Leave the sign making and designing to those who can do it well. I would rather pay someone to make a great design for my customer than to do it myself. The pride comes from a great looking end product and a happy customer.

 

[Replicator]

I just puked in my mouth a little....

That just make me spit out my drink . . . Thanks !

PhatWall . . . Most newbs go through this hazing or initiation period when they first join, especially when they post work of this nature.

Don't feel bad, it's not you . . . Well, it is you, but don't let it get to you, just buck up and post some better $tuff in the future and listen to the critique,

You will grow by the comments you get here . . . and Welcome to Signs 101

 

[Vinylman]

So Cody,

You come here "showing off" your so called artwork, and start wraggin' on the locals.
Then you tell us how you have this "NEW" concept called "PhatWall"? And how you are such big time that you have a web presence, and a new company you are promoting? As well as personally designed software to create the customers "DIY" artwork?

I checked you out.
Your web site is "parked" @ GoDaddy. A $1.99 site.
Your "Business" is a 250+ word run on sentence. Not even a paragraph anywhere to be found. BTW, your grammatic errors are glaring.
Locating your "business" on a "BUY / SELL" business investment site certainly adds to your credibility. Where can I get one of your "franchise" opportunity kits?

And you want "your customer" to design their own wall vinyl from your "yet to be released" software, and then they {your customer} can go find an installer in their state?

Sounds like a great game plan.

Best of luck.

Oh, by the way! If your school project is an example of letting "the customer" design their own wall vinyl, DON'T SELL YOUR LAWN MOWING BUSINESS just yet!

 

[tanneji]

well said rep

 

[Jillbeans]

Letting customers design their own stuff is a good way of not learning to do it yourself.
That way you can blame them for the visual pollution you will be making.
You do need spellcheck.
...back to eating Bon Bons for me.
PS
Nice font Vinylman! hahaha

 

[Vinylman]

Nice "catch" Jill.

But I would be willing to bet that WallPhat won't even get it!

 

[PhatWall]

latest phatwall

Ok, everyone is absolutely correct!!! My spelling is a bit bad and have no excuses. I will start copying my posts in word and run a spell check from now on.
Anyways I am submitting a job i did back in July. I purchased the graphics from shutterstock.com. The restaurant is called Wiki Hawaiian BBQ and is located in Rock Springs, WY.
I used a canvas textured vinyl from a company called DreamScape. It turned out beautiful. Please give me your input and I will try my best to not take offence!!

 

[SignManiac]

I will say that's a lot better than what you showed us before, but....there's a big difference between printing stock photos and actually designing an image. Quality design requires a lot of knowledge and understanding about the relationship of graphics and composition. Even if you have some amount of creative ability, that alone won't help you until you learn the basic fundamentals. Learn these and you yourself will see a big improvement. Best of luck to you.

 

[letterman7]

Nice thing about textured vinyls is that they can hide some wall imperfections. Shutterstock has some good generic photos, as presented here, and the installation is nothing special. While it looks nice, it's still stock photos... which is fine if that's what they wanted. That could have been your chance to upsell to a complete interior design package specifically generated just for them with a unified theme, rather than relying on a photo montage. It's all part of the learnin' process!

 

[scuba_steve2699]

Not sure if anyone else caught it but didn't you say that you printed the design on a Roland 540V and then listed the equipment that you use as a Mutoh 64" Valujet? I wonder who you subbed this job out to?

 

[astro8]

I had a look around the net as well...you're completely dellusional.

 

[briankb]

... I will start copying my posts in word and run a spell check from now on. ...

or you could just do what I suggested earlier and use Firefox 3.x or Google Chrome which have auto spell checkers built into the web browser. But they what TF do I know...

 

[David Wright]

or you could just do what I suggested earlier and use Firefox 3.x or Google Chrome which have auto spell checkers built into the web browser. But they what TF do I know...

Spell check doesn't catch grammatical errors.
But THEN what TF do I know.