Just finished this sign today

[rossmosh]

If you bring out your crew and you're all set to do an install. You take down a banner you didn't put up and magically it exposes a wall that needs painting, you're put in a pretty crap position. You can't just "fix" that paint. Chance of the colors not matching and looking like a crappy patch job are about 100%. You need to paint the entire wall. Last I checked, being a sign shop does not make you a painting contractor. So now you're in a position where you either have to pack up all your crap and come back after the painters do their job or you continue with the install. Not to mention the additional costs the customer may or may not be prepared for.

I think if someone made a poll, a fair few people would respond "Continue with install as long as customer approves"

As for the rest of the job, the only thing I question is using 1/2" acrylic. You could have done the same job using 3/4" or 1" PVC and dropped your material cost way down. It's also crazy that you had to buy white acrylic just to paint it black. Seems unnecessary. End result looks good all the same.

 

[HDvinyl]

They obviously put the banner up to cover up the pealing paint...

Anyone that deals with ams, obviously hasn't thought many things through.

 

[player]

Nobody is saying paint the wall for free. It needed to be painted before the sign went up. Not doing that, or postponing the install until it is painted to very unprofessional. Who cares what a poll says. What a professional knows, is paint the f'ing wall first. Tape off the area for the sign, and paint it white. There is a bucket truck there. How long could it take? How much more money? $300? $500?

 

[TimToad]

Being the devils advocate here....I wouldn't paint it for free and more than likely they were not going to pay for all costs considering the circumstance so its a battle of who could care less, contractor wins that one. You're already out there to do an install with associated costs, who pays for that? Its not like you conveniently keep a gallon of matched paint and rollers with you. So you would have to call off the install, push back whatever else is on your schedule, go to the paint store, come back, paint, pay guys for that, wait until it dries, pay guys for that too. A phone call explaining the situation and costs would have been the best course.
Remember, you have overhead costs. When you do something for free, you are actually paying for someone elses project.

We're talking about the local food bank. If you've had never had any experience with yours like we have with ours in every city we've lived in, you'll call us crazy, but we think starving people in the richest country on earth is a travesty and more than a personal pet peeve.

These are shoestring budget operations doing the most basic charitable good there is, helping feed chronically hungry people. AMS and any of us probably waste more time and labor on pet projects for buddies than what it would take to donate the paint and labor to make this project right, generate a ton of good will and even figure out a way to write it off your taxes.

I'm not going to argue or try to guilt anyone into doing something that contradicts their approach or financial motivations and I can only speak for myself and my business partner who shares my philosophical bent. We as socially conscious, civic minded, community minded members of our business community would never do something so half ass and use the excuse of cost to dismiss the reaction many have had about it.

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

and we are talking about a Food Pantry here. Place gives food to people that can't afford to even eat. It's not like your talking about giving free work to Walmart.

But then that begs the question, why are they spending so much on acrylic dimensional letters and not using that $ to feed people.

 

[GAC05]

Tough call.
It is discouraging to put hard work into something and do it well but still have the overall effect not much changed from what was up there to start with.
Teaching moment to put down in your journal - Need to inspect the install site and let the customer know what issues you may run into - let them decide.

wayne k
guam usa

 

[SignosaurusRex]

I didn't do the banner and didn't know what the condition was underneath. Also the tape on the wall for the template ripped paint off, it was in bad shape. But the customer couldn't stop saying enough great things about the sign and loved it. So as long as she is happy, I am happy. I will follow up with her to see if she wants us to paint around the letters.

With all due respect, I'd prefer to think you never gave this one as much needed thought rather than being lazy. You could and should have taken the opportunity to inspect the condition of the wall before starting production. Additionally, It would have presented an excellent opportunity to increase your profit margin percentage (at little cost and an up-sell)) and increase the visual pleasance and impact of your signage with both the customer and the viewing public ten-fold. Hopefully you think to consider this approach the next time around.

 

[rossmosh]

Nobody is saying paint the wall for free. It needed to be painted before the sign went up. Not doing that, or postponing the install until it is painted to very unprofessional. Who cares what a poll says. What a professional knows, is paint the f'ing wall first. Tape off the area for the sign, and paint it white. There is a bucket truck there. How long could it take? How much more money? $300? $500?

I could argue that a distressed painted wall is fashionable. I can't argue in favor of a crappy patch job with mismatching paint.

Rushing around to make the paint work would be worse of a decision than just installing the damn sign. If the paint is literally falling off the wall from the template, the wall needs to be scraped, primed, and then painted with 2 coats. That turns a 1 day job into at best, a 2 day job.

 

[equippaint]

We're talking about the local food bank. If you've had never had any experience with yours like we have with ours in every city we've lived in, you'll call us crazy, but we think starving people in the richest country on earth is a travesty and more than a personal pet peeve.

These are shoestring budget operations doing the most basic charitable good there is, helping feed chronically hungry people. AMS and any of us probably waste more time and labor on pet projects for buddies than what it would take to donate the paint and labor to make this project right, generate a ton of good will and even figure out a way to write it off your taxes.

I'm not going to argue or try to guilt anyone into doing something that contradicts their approach or financial motivations and I can only speak for myself and my business partner who shares my philosophical bent. We as socially conscious, civic minded, community minded members of our business community would never do something so half *** and use the excuse of cost to dismiss the reaction many have had about it.

We repair our local food banks trucks so I am very familiar with it. They have money. Maybe the directors could take a hit to their overblown pay instead of me eating it? We actually have another non profit charity around the corner from us and the "owner" lives in the wealthiest neighborhood in the area. Always hitting people up for money.... what do they donate? Don't be naïve.
Ill edit to add that I am very socially aware and community minded.

 

[equippaint]

Nobody is saying paint the wall for free. It needed to be painted before the sign went up. Not doing that, or postponing the install until it is painted to very unprofessional. Who cares what a poll says. What a professional knows, is paint the f'ing wall first. Tape off the area for the sign, and paint it white. There is a bucket truck there. How long could it take? How much more money? $300? $500?

Technically, at least in my state, you have to be licensed to paint a building. Its a 10k fine here for unlicensed contracting. Putting up a sign doesn't give you a free pass to paint, no different than electrical requirements.

 

[ddarlak]

its crazy to blame this disaster of an install on not knowing what was behind the banner, you posted a before pic and it doesn't take a rocket scientist or a competent signman to know your not installing this type of sign on a crap wall.

it just doesn't happen period, there isn't an excuse that makes this work, this was ill conceived, kinda like posting this on an internet forum where sign professionals will tear it apart for the crap job that it is.


press the like and or agree button here --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\/

 

[SignosaurusRex]

its crazy to blame this disaster of an install on not knowing what was behind the banner, you posted a before pic and it doesn't take a rocket scientist or a competent signman to know your not installing this type of sign on a crap wall.

it just doesn't happen period, there isn't an excuse that makes this work, this was ill conceived, kinda like posting this on an internet forum where sign professionals will tear it apart for the crap job that it is.

With all due respect to you ddarlak, these kind of jobs do in fact happen. Although... typically not to experienced pro's with a sense of self preservation of their future in biz and a conscience for quality, unless they are consciously on their way "out" and don't give a crap as long as they get the $. The rest will usually learn from it and hopefully apply appropriate actions next time around.

 

[ams]

Even though it's not my fault and the customer didn't ask for the wall to be painted, I told her this morning that I will touch up the wall for her on my dime. So some of you can get off my back.

 

[ddarlak]

With all due respect to you ddarlak, these kind of jobs do in fact happen. Although... typically not to experienced pro's with a sense of self preservation of their future in biz and a conscience for quality, unless they are consciously on their way "out" and don't give a crap as long as they get the $. The rest will usually learn from it and hopefully apply appropriate actions next time around.

When I said it just doesn't happen, I meant that this would never happen in my world. I get that this type of work exists.

I can't see making this type of sign, all the work that went into it and then hang it on that wall. If this was my job I would have stated 15 seconds after looking at that wall the the wall needs to be painted first and that I would include it in my price or you could do it yourself, but that it must be done.

I'm blasting the OP because he posted this on an open forum looking to show off his skills.

In my book, it's a fail, I can't even judge/admire the sign work because the most important part of this job was overlooked, never given the attention it desperately needed.

ATTENTION TO DETAIL IS YOUR FRIEND

 

[sardocs]

The messy looking background can be fixed, but the great big gap between the main copy and the graphic are forever.

 

[DerbyCitySignGuy]

We repair our local food banks trucks so I am very familiar with it. They have money. Maybe the directors could take a hit to their overblown pay instead of me eating it? We actually have another non profit charity around the corner from us and the "owner" lives in the wealthiest neighborhood in the area. Always hitting people up for money.... what do they donate? Don't be naïve.
Ill edit to add that I am very socially aware and community minded.

What do you think the director of a food pantry makes? Most people who work for non-profits make VERY little money. The average salary for a director of a food pantry (nationwide) is something like $50-60k. That's PEANUTS considering the amount of work that person is doing. They're often understaffed, overworked, and operating on little to no budget. On top of that, they're probably SWIMMING in student loan debt. Meanwhile, the director of operations for even a medium sized company can easily be making twice that, if not more. Some of the large, national non-profits pay their folks pretty well, because they're running incredibly large companies. But the CEO of a non-profit makes next to nothing in comparison to the CEO of private sector, for profit companies. We're talking the difference between $200,000 and MILLIONS of dollars for the exact same job.

Honestly, your statement is flat out offensive. I doubt you intended it to be, but it is. My mom worked for small to medium non-profits (and one of the largest in the world) almost her whole life. You have some serious misconceptions about how non-profits operate.

To stay a little more on topic, wall should have either been stripped or painted. The sign itself looks good, but against that wall it seriously detracts from the finished product. I think Tim is right. It would have been pretty easy to paint the section behind the wall, donate the remainder of the paint to the pantry so they can match it for the rest of the wall, and be done with it. Wouldn't have cost you too much money and you would have gotten a warm fuzzy feeling for doing something nice.

 

[equippaint]

What do you think the director of a food pantry makes? Most people who work for non-profits make VERY little money. The average salary for a director of a food pantry (nationwide) is something like $50-60k. That's PEANUTS considering the amount of work that person is doing. They're often understaffed, overworked, and operating on little to no budget. On top of that, they're probably SWIMMING in student loan debt. Meanwhile, the director of operations for even a medium sized company can easily be making twice that, if not more. Some of the large, national non-profits pay their folks pretty well, because they're running incredibly large companies. But the CEO of a non-profit makes next to nothing in comparison to the CEO of private sector, for profit companies. We're talking the difference between $200,000 and MILLIONS of dollars for the exact same job.

Honestly, your statement is flat out offensive. I doubt you intended it to be, but it is. My mom worked for small to medium non-profits (and one of the largest in the world) almost her whole life. You have some serious misconceptions about how non-profits operate.

To stay a little more on topic, wall should have either been stripped or painted. The sign itself looks good, but against that wall it seriously detracts from the finished product. I think Tim is right. It would have been pretty easy to paint the section behind the wall, donate the remainder of the paint to the pantry so they can match it for the rest of the wall, and be done with it. Wouldn't have cost you too much money and you would have gotten a warm fuzzy feeling for doing something nice.

Nonsense. The highest paid ceo in our area works for a nonprofit. Its a big stink here. Just north of us, same deal with the blood bank. Do some research and you will be enlightened. salarys are typically lower but whats that have to do with anything? If ams painted the wall for free were they going to give employees raises?
Would it make you feel better if I said I would have just painted it? I would have included it in the price but not to be nice. I think a box of a darker contrasting color behind it would help the lettering stand out

 

[DerbyCitySignGuy]

Nonsense. The highest paid ceo in our area works for a nonprofit. Its a big stink here. Just north of us, same deal with the blood bank. Do some research and you will be enlightened. salarys are typically lower but whats that have to do with anything? If ams painted the wall for free were they going to give employees raises?
Would it make you feel better if I said I would have just painted it? I would have included it in the price but not to be nice. I think a box of a darker contrasting color behind it would help the lettering stand out

You specifically said "what do they donate" implying they're just asking for handouts without making any sacrifices. Anyone who works for a non-profit is essentially donating their time, as they could work for almost any other organization and make more money. Second, they RARELY have employees beyond a few key positions. Most people working for small and medium sized non-profits are volunteers.

I'm not saying that there aren't outliers, but your anecdotal evidence doesn't mesh with the reality of pay rates for non-profit employees. It's pretty common knowledge that people working for non-profits make less money and it's easily verifiable.

I honestly don't care what you do with your free time or your money, but I do care that you're spreading misinformation about non-profits in general. Your broad suggestion that non-profits are filthy rich and laughing all the way to the bank is simply untrue. Are there some? Sure. Are they the standard? Far from it.

 

[eahicks]

I didn't do the banner and didn't know what the condition was underneath.

This still isn't an excuse. I would not want my nice work put up on an ugly, disrepaired wall. If I didn't know the condition of the wall when quoting the job, I would have put that stipulation in the order "ALL DEPENDS ON CONDITION OF THE WALL AFTER BANNER REMOVAL." Could have easily insisted they paint it first.

 

[Nickprints]

*Sips tea*