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"Invitation to Bid"

Marlene

Marlene

New Member
anyone else hate these "Invitations to bid" that come from non-sign people for a project? they always spec out stuff that is hard to get or it is clear they have no idea of material sizes so they have something 49" wide. just got one for a local city project for a park. the signs are so overly designed it is crazy. they are powder coated back ground. .5" thick aluminum with routed out logos, a corner radius just on one side, odd sized and mounted on stand offs. they clearly have no idea how much these would weigh. I just wish that when they have a projec like this that the would go to a sign shop for the sign designs instead of some clown with a ton of ideas but no clue how to make them work. I had one where they wanted 20' or so of galvanized with routed letters, no backer as they wanted to see thru the areas where the letters where routed out and it would hang from a ceiling. I asked just how the center of the letters would be where shown since they didn't use a stencil font and they had no plan for that. rant for the day ;)
 
C

ColoPrinthead

Guest
If you want the job at all, bid it the way you feel it should be made and spec all of the materials the way you see fit.
 
P

player

New Member
When I bid on that sort of thing they usually wind up getting something way cheaper... disregarding their specs.
 
Rick

Rick

Certified Enneadecagon Designer
ColoPrinthead said:
If you want the job at all, bid it the way you feel it should be made and spec all of the materials the way you see fit.
Click to expand...

Don't do this... bid as designed otherwise they will kick the bid back and
you would have done the work for nothing.

In the RFI process you ask if you can use alternatives and an optional bid.
If they agree, then usually you bid as designed, and have an optional bid price.
 
Mainframe

Mainframe

New Member
Just got one today, I have to give them 10% of the project to hold to bid, this is the second time this thing came around nobody wants to deal with them. NEWSFLASH! I make signs and you pay me! I don't pay you! This government is backwards! LOL
 
Rick

Rick

Certified Enneadecagon Designer
I like them because that's how I make my living...

I also work on estimating and bids for sign companies and get
really bad specs. I just sent out a multipage RFI on a designey
package where the package went through a sign shop for review...
The sign shop is currently clambering to find out what went wrong...
Nearly every sign was wrong where code related lettering size
would make every sign larger. They wanted a 5 year warranty (huh?)
and "required" them to be vandal proof - what does that even mean?

Some jobs are not worth the effort, this job is in the 200k range so
sometimes you have to deal with cr@p specs and no sign counts or
location plans.

I'm sending some marketing material to this developer, I know I can
get them tighter specs than this clown.

If the RFI time has not passed, go over the specs with a fine tooth
comb, send it off and see what happens, you score points for saving
them money and bring up the fact that the designer may not know
what they are doing.... just make sure what you suggest is realistic.
 
Rick

Rick

Certified Enneadecagon Designer
Mainframe said:
Just got one today, I have to give them 10% of the project to hold to bid, this is the second time this thing came around nobody wants to deal with them. NEWSFLASH! I make signs and you pay me! I don't pay you! This government is backwards! LOL
Click to expand...

I've seen those, ridiculous!

On the RFI state that you will not give them 10%... all that can say is no.
 
C

ChaseO

Premium Subscriber
player said:
When I bid on that sort of thing they usually wind up getting something way cheaper... disregarding their specs.
Click to expand...


This happens to me all the time. Bid something the way THEY spec'd it, and a month later you see the sign and its completely different than what you priced. :banghead:
 
B

BIG EASY DOES IT

New Member
Rick said:
I like them because that's how I make my living...

I also work on estimating and bids for sign companies and get
really bad specs. I just sent out a multipage RFI on a designey
package where the package went through a sign shop for review...
The sign shop is currently clambering to find out what went wrong...
Nearly every sign was wrong where code related lettering size
would make every sign larger. They wanted a 5 year warranty (huh?)
and "required" them to be vandal proof - what does that even mean?

Some jobs are not worth the effort, this job is in the 200k range so
sometimes you have to deal with cr@p specs and no sign counts or
location plans.

I'm sending some marketing material to this developer, I know I can
get them tighter specs than this clown.

If the RFI time has not passed, go over the specs with a fine tooth
comb, send it off and see what happens, you score points for saving
them money and bring up the fact that the designer may not know
what they are doing.... just make sure what you suggest is realistic.
Click to expand...



I make vandal proof signs. You sell them the idea of a sign in their head and no one can take that away
 
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