ughhhh... hoping you do more than foam signs...
I forget the program that tried to combine the 2 but
they never looked that good because they can't do both things great.
The majority of sign shops I design for use a design program
like Illustrator or Corel.
Are you going out and doing sales?
Are you the one making the design?
--- can you design?
Are you doing the estimates, and can you estimate?
Depends on how good your estimator is. Hopefully they/you
can estimate with little detail. I make presentations for various
sign shops and some really need a lot of detail in order to get a
precise estimate.
What we do is design the sign in Illustrator/CadTools. (Almost always in 11 x 17)
Do the estimate in Filemaker Pro in 8 1/2 x 11
Both layouts are templates and designed so they are uniform.
Shown below is a typical layout, (in Illustrator) though it would have a side view.
Basic callouts, measurements, and scale person. Maybe even superimpose it
where the sign would go. (I use a coro sign on a step stake to get the scale
right)
Design your estimate template in whatever estimating software to match,
that way they look like a cohesive document. Most sign shops don't
go through all that trouble, but once a template is done, it makes for a nicer
presentation.
