sign and design software

[easystar]

Hi to all
I have been in the sign business for many years. I started with a Roland EX 540 pro11 print and cut machine using Flexipro software and I am absolutely glad it was recommended to me. My daughter wants to get into the sign business in a small community, and serve the district and area where she and her husband live.
She has experimented with a few freebies such as canva. She did buy corel draw but finds it frustrating to work with. Of course I suggested Flexipro but rightly leasing it is not viable for her at this time. I have suggested autocad only because I know of it as a design program. She has purchased a Roland TrueVis SG300 print and cut machine. What design software do you use or recommend that is compatible outside of programs like flexipro and the like.
Thank you to all
Alex




























sg

 

[Saturn]

Look at the Affinity V2 Universal License for $169 (one-time vs. subscription.)

That said, if you're gonna make $, you'll probably have to pony up for Adobe at some point.

 

[weyandsign]

Watch Corel draw videos and learn, since you already bought it. Autocad won't be easier than corel draw.

 

[myront]

There's a whole lot more to know than just applications alone. The best way to learn the various programs is one on one sessions or tutorials. Corel is, by far, the easiest to learn without too much intervention. Yeah, gonna get a lot of flack for that but....
Ask questions on the specific forum and get a network of friends who know the program well. Sometimes a DM to them will get you a quicker answer.
Just start playing with the tools and trial and error.

 

[d fleming]

+1 learn corel. If print and cut is all she does it will serve well. I started with paint brushes and have changed with the times. I can run signlab in my sleep, lol. Still have and use corel as well as illy and ps. Corel has excellent import filters for taking in customer files. Hell, signs 365 uses it.

 

[bob]

Look at the Affinity V2 Universal License for $169 (one-time vs. subscription.)

That said, if you're gonna make $, you'll probably have to pony up for Adobe at some point.

Nonsense. I've been in the sign business for well over 50 years and have never, as in ever, felt any need whatsoever for Adobe. Flexi and Corel have been more than adequate for my needs since I got into vinyl in 2002. If you're looking for some magic bean that will make things easier, there isn't any.

 

[unclebun]

Hi to all
I have been in the sign business for many years. I started with a Roland EX 540 pro11 print and cut machine using Flexipro software and I am absolutely glad it was recommended to me. My daughter wants to get into the sign business in a small community, and serve the district and area where she and her husband live.
She has experimented with a few freebies such as canva. She did buy corel draw but finds it frustrating to work with. Of course I suggested Flexipro but rightly leasing it is not viable for her at this time. I have suggested autocad only because I know of it as a design program. She has purchased a Roland TrueVis SG300 print and cut machine. What design software do you use or recommend that is compatible outside of programs like flexipro and the like.
Thank you to all
Alex

She just needs to learn to use Corel Draw. Spend a couple of hours doing basic sign layout. Like the quintessential No Dumping, For Sale, etc. Start each as a new layout, with a fictional set of instructions from fictional customers. If she cannot come to grips with designing signs in Corel Draw she needs to rethink her career desires. Corel Draw is about as easy to use to design signs as anything there is. What she needs to remove from her mind is thoughts of all kinds of fancy effects and so on until she can do the basics without having to think about it.

Adobe should be the farthest thing from her mind if she thinks Corel is frustrating.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

The absolute need (not want, but need) to go Adobe is not really there. About the only reason that I could see, if accepting third party files and that could be iffy. I'm not even using an OS that Adobe installs on (or Draw for that matter, not for roughly 25 yrs anyway) and most people would never know that I didn't have a copy of Adobe and/or Draw (and I got Ai files far more compared to Draw, but I got other formats more compared to even Ai).

For learning any program, what works for me is actual projects. Don't get stuck in "tutorial hell", actually do projects, come up with briefs and try to accomplish those. Each one, increasing what is desired.

I would also stipulate not getting to enamored with program specific tooling. While it can be great on one hand, it makes it hard to switch programs if there is a desire to do so (for whatever reason that may crop up). Know functionality that is a baseline to existing in any competent designing software of this type. Some of it's manual and tedious, but after that can graduate to the more abstracted tooling, but always have that base knowledge to fall back on if needed (for whatever reason that is).

 

[Bobby H]

She did buy corel draw but finds it frustrating to work with. Of course I suggested Flexipro but rightly leasing it is not viable for her at this time. I have suggested autocad only because I know of it as a design program. She has purchased a Roland TrueVis SG300 print and cut machine. What design software do you use or recommend that is compatible outside of programs like flexipro and the like.

AutoCAD files are not friendly to sign production. Plus, a legit copy of AutoCAD is expensive.

Apps like Flexi or its Vinyl Express LXi cousin are good for general vinyl design/cutting operation. For all the advantages they have with connecting to and controlling vinyl cutters they lack certain design features commonly found in Adobe Illustrator, CorelDRAW or even Affinity Designer. Lots of sign shops will get the design done in an app like CorelDRAW and then export the artwork into Flexi for the actual cutting work.

Vinyl cutter plugins are available for Illustrator and CorelDRAW. Affinity Designer does not have a real plugin architecture at this time.

That said, if you're gonna make $, you'll probably have to pony up for Adobe at some point.

A big part of that depends on the sign maker's clients and the artwork they provide. Adobe-flavored files are very common with bigger corporate clients and other large institutions (hospitals, universities, etc).

CorelDRAW and Affinity Designer do an okay job importing AI, EPS and PDF files. But that's only if the artwork was saved in a manner to make it compatible with other rival applications. Artwork with various Adobe-dependent effects such as art brushes or pattern brushes applied to line strokes won't open properly outside Illustrator. Gradients on line strokes won't work. Freeform gradients won't work outside Illustrator. Various transparency modes applied to objects can get botched outside Illustrator. Moving CorelDRAW artwork into Illustrator can be an adventure too.

Mom-and-pop clients don't go the Adobe route nearly as often. A JPEG or PNG image is the best you get from many small clients. Canva is still getting more popular with the D-I-Y crowd. The SVG files Canva outputs are usually garbage. Sometimes a "PDF for Print" file saved out of Canva might be work-able. I often have to run those files through the Vector First Aid plugin in Adobe Illustrator. The same PDF is often a mess when opened in CorelDRAW or Affinity Designer. Yet again, there's another advantage with using the "evil" Adobe software (and paying even more for a plugin).

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Vinyl cutter plugins are available for Illustrator and CorelDRAW. Affinity Designer does not have a real plugin architecture at this time.

Depending on the cutter that one has, don't even need plugins. If they can accept RAW HPGL and parse what they need, just have to setup a virtual HGPL printer that outputs from one's chosen vector program.

A little more complex on Windows (involves more steps, but given what some people have to go thru for some things, not really all that much of a problem).

CorelDRAW and Affinity Designer do an okay job importing AI, EPS and PDF files. But that's only if the artwork was saved in a manner to make it compatible with other rival applications. Artwork with various Adobe-dependent effects such as art brushes or pattern brushes applied to line strokes won't open properly outside Illustrator.

If they aren't the OEM included brushes etc, that can still be an issue even with staying in the ecosystem of Adobe. Would have to do something like outlining the stroke etc, like one would do with fonts that aren't going to be installed on the target machine.

Gradients on line strokes won't work. Freeform gradients won't work outside Illustrator. Various transparency modes applied to objects can get botched outside Illustrator. Moving CorelDRAW artwork into Illustrator can be an adventure too.

I find it incredulous that people tend to expect 1:1 bidirectional support with competing applications (talking people in general here).

Mom-and-pop clients don't go the Adobe route nearly as often. A JPEG or PNG image is the best you get from many small clients.

I think this is going to depend on what one's clients are. I have gotten raster files far more from state agencies, hospitals, financial institutions. It all depends on who they have in charge of dealing with me on the project. I have notice that things have gotten worse at that as well, lot of turn over, but I digress on that. Draw would be what I get most from my smaller clients (but they tend to be mom and pop shops), some Adobe, but mostly Draw.

 

[tulsagraphics]

She just needs to learn to use Corel Draw. Spend a couple of hours doing basic sign layout. Like the quintessential No Dumping, For Sale, etc. Start each as a new layout, with a fictional set of instructions from fictional customers. If she cannot come to grips with designing signs in Corel Draw she needs to rethink her career desires. Corel Draw is about as easy to use to design signs as anything there is. What she needs to remove from her mind is thoughts of all kinds of fancy effects and so on until she can do the basics without having to think about it.

Adobe should be the farthest thing from her mind if she thinks Corel is frustrating.

Precisely. Ditch the Canva (search for Canva on signs101 -- we frown on it for a reason. The output is 80% garbage). There are no easy buttons here, easystar. Designing on screen is one thing. Producing a design is a totally different animal. This industry requires a lot of learning, time, effort, dedication, patience, a flare for creative design, creative solutions for cost-effective production, ability to problem solve and ability to learn / hone techniques in production and installation (not to mention all the aspects of owning/operating a business) -- as I'm sure you know if you've been around this industry. I promise I'm not trying to discourage -- but simply to highlight the fact there are many "not-so-easy" aspects in this industry that are just as frustrating/challenging as a design program. AutoCAD will not help her unless she's into engineering / architectural drawings. If she's on a shoestring budget, try InkScape and Gimp. These are not commercial design tools, but they're very popular "free" (GPL) tools and will keep the costs down until she understands the need and the importance of commercial-grade software.

I applaud her interest in the industry, that's awesome. But what you should do -- is exactly what I wish I could do with all graphics "designers" -- get her into your shop. Send her designs to production and let her witness first hand all the shortcomings of a "screen only graphics designer". Help her perform actual production -- show her how your software facilitates these processes so she can understand the value of commercial software. Make sure she understands why shop overhead is often $100-130+/hr. It only sounds profitable on paper, but realistically it's because overhead is high and we have a lot of unbillable hours. While signs / printing can be profitable, most of us here do it because we love the challenging work -- not because it's a big money making vending machine (hint: it's possible, but extremely rare). We all stand to lose as much as we gain. We do it because we love it and some of us have found market niches that took us years / decades to acquire. It's not for everyone, but she can be successful if she truly has a passion and mindset for it.

 

[monroesigns]

I think this is going to depend on what one's clients are. I have gotten raster files far more from state agencies, hospitals, financial institutions. It all depends on who they have in charge of dealing with me on the project. I have notice that things have gotten worse at that as well, lot of turn over, but I digress on that. Draw would be what I get most from my smaller clients (but they tend to be mom and pop shops), some Adobe, but mostly Draw.

I think the issue is too many people only send raster (jpg) because if they cannot open the file, they think the file is corrupt. 15 years ago I did a job for La-Z Boy (based here in Monroe, MI, but a nation-wide brand). I was supplied a low-res .jpeg for a project for a sign at their corporate headquarters. When I asked for a vector format, their marketing department said an admin had deleted all the art files that she couldn't open because they were "corrupt".

 

[WildWestDesigns]

If she's on a shoestring budget, try InkScape and Gimp.

If one has issues with Canva, the same thing will exist with Inkscape and/or Gimp. I despise Gimp, but that's mainly due to it's UI. I'm not a GTK fan at all.
Inkscape, has an issue with colors destined for the printer. Would have to combine it with something like Scribus (alternative to Indesign) for better color profiling. There may be a plugin to work better in that regard (I'm wanting to think that there is), but that would be one issue.

I know that there are some that dislike the lack of font support, more is actually there, but it does require handling SVG markup (which how Inkscape presents it, not any different compared to Ai's font widgets, not like having to edit SVGs in a text editor), but for those not used to something like that, it can be off putting. It actually does make sense given what the master format of SVG is designed to be used for. Which is the web.

Inkscape is capable of being a professional tool, Gimp requires more attention.

These are not commercial design tools, but they're very popular "free" (GPL) tools and will keep the costs down until she understands the need and the importance of commercial-grade software.

GPL is only relevant for developments, for end users, these are free in both important aspects. Cost and freedom to look at the source code. Learning curve has a "cost", but that "cost" also exists with other software.

Ironically, Canva can be a paid for app, so in that instance, technically speaking it is "commercial" software. It being a WAN based web app though (even for the mac/windows builds, as it uses Webview) presents functionality concerns, especially with file/font I/O. If it was LAN web app, could have been different, but it isn't.

I applaud her interest in the industry, that's awesome. But what you should do -- is exactly what I wish I could do with all graphics "designers" -- get her into your shop. Send her designs to production and let her witness first hand all the shortcomings of a "screen only graphics designer". Help her perform actual production -- show her how your software facilitates these processes so she can understand the value of commercial software.

Knowledge is the key thing here.

Have to remember, Ai/Draw/Inkscape, they are not sign specific software(commercial or otherwise), people still have to mold them to do what they need to do, especially for more "advanced" features. Rather or not one needs them is something else.

The more knowledge that one has, the more that one can move even between programs that take more "molding" compared to others.

For someone just starting out, not so much.

 

[Bobby H]

If they aren't the OEM included brushes etc, that can still be an issue even with staying in the ecosystem of Adobe. Would have to do something like outlining the stroke etc, like one would do with fonts that aren't going to be installed on the target machine.

An Illustrator file that has custom made art/pattern brushes applied live to objects will have those brushes present in the brushes panel in Adobe Illustrator.

I find it incredulous that people tend to expect 1:1 bidirectional support with competing applications (talking people in general here).

When people claim they don't need any Adobe applications and then are faced with having to import a client's Adobe-generated art files that's where the desires for that 1:1 bidirectional support come into play.

CorelDRAW and Affinity Designer are not perfect at all with importing Illustrator-generated AI, EPS and PDF files. All sorts of things can break. Of course I see the same thing going from CorelDRAW into Illustrator.

 

[Saturn]

There's any combination of tools you can use. Can you not have both?

If I had any use for Corel, you bet I'd use it. I'm admittedly more on the print side, vs the sign side, but it's not really a team sport to me either. What's the most useful and going to streamline my production, I'm there.

 

[Bobby H]

There's any combination of tools you can use. Can you not have both?

I've been using both Adobe Illustrator and CorelDRAW since the early 1990's. Photoshop was the first Adobe application I wanted to get; I bought a retail box that had Photoshop 2.5 and Illustrator 4 bundled together. I used CorelDRAW a lot, but the app had no ability to move vector paths into Photoshop. But that was something Illustrator could do. Photoshop didn't even support layers at this time (and RAM cost around $40 per megabyte). Being able to work with AICB paths in Photoshop to create selections, fills, etc allowed me to do a lot of things with limited computing resources.

CorelDRAW has been really good for designing signs at full size, thanks to a maximum art board size that goes out to 1800" X 1800". Illustrator's max art board size was only around 100" X 100" in its Postscript days and got expanded to 227" X 227" when it was re-built on PDF technology 25 years ago (the large canvas thing in Illustrator is a recent development, but sort of a work-around).

Out of any vector graphics application, CorelDRAW has the best keyboard shortcuts for aligning and distributing objects, making it great for a lot of technical oriented drawing tasks. CorelDRAW has a number of other unique features. I use its Pointillizer effect for accurately simulating LED message center displays in sign drawings (I've been unable to re-create the same thing using the Phantasm plugin for Illustrator). CorelDRAW has a number of other features that are either unique or better implemented than its rivals. I can't stand the gradient annotator in Adobe Illustrator; the ones in CorelDRAW and Affinity Designer are easier to use. But CorelDRAW has a frustrating limitation with its gradients. If a gradient fill contains varying levels of transparency the app will often rasterize the fill when the artwork is exported in other formats like Illustrator AI or PDF. That sucks. As a result, I may build a complex piece of artwork in CorelDRAW and get all the colored fills started there, but I'll finish up the work within Adobe Illustrator to guarantee the transparency effects in exported PDF files will remain vector-based.

Adobe Illustrator has a lot of unique features. I like its art and pattern brushes. I've used art brushes as a means to make far better looking text on path effects (Astute Graphics' Reform plugin has a very good Text on Path feature). I think Illustrator is the only drawing app that can apply gradients to line strokes. Free-form gradients are also unique to Illustrator. Our large format RIP applications understand those objects since they have Adobe certified PDF print engines. One new feature I really like: the measuring tool can be used to calculate the physical area of selected paths. This information is useful on two fronts. Path area and tool path lengths can helpful at pricing out jobs. Knowing how much square footage a set of channel letters consumes can be useful for getting an installation permit. Astute Graphics' Dynamic Measure tool plugin could also get path area data, but on only one object at a time. This new feature built into Illustrator's measuring tool can get path area on multiple paths at once.

 

[kcollinsdesign]

Nonsense. I've been in the sign business for well over 50 years and have never, as in ever, felt any need whatsoever for Adobe. Flexi and Corel have been more than adequate for my needs since I got into vinyl in 2002. If you're looking for some magic bean that will make things easier, there isn't any.

The Adobe Creative Suite is the industry standard for a reason. Powerful, professional grade programs with universal compatibility. The creative possibilities are endless. Matches well with every printer driver made (you might also like to complement the Adobe software with SAi FlexiComplete if you are running production in-house).

For the past 15 years I have been outsourcing as much as I can. I have developed both professional and personal relationships with my suppliers, and, to me, it is like they are in the next room. Having a variety of production resources allows me to be exceptionally agile and provide my clients with exactly what they need at a much lower cost point. I have a desk at the shop (almost strictly installation, service, and maintenance) and one at home, both comfortable and fully featured. I spend at least half my time designing (20 hours/week designing, 10 hours managing the business, and 10 hours doing whatever - mostly goofing off).

My choice not to print or fabricate anything stems from changes in the business over the years (I started with a kit of brushes and One-Shot lettering enamel). Large production facilities can make anything I need, usually faster and of higher quality, and almost always at lower cost (including shipping).

People can now order anything they want from the internet (which I discourage; they will usually get a better, more fully-realized solution if they retain us for design services), but installation, service, and maintenance continue to be local. We make investments in service vehicles and equipment, material handling, excavation, and aerial platforms. We have trained operators which we pay prevailing wage and benefits. This where the money is.

So, for me, Adobe is indispensable. I also use Extensis Connect for font management and HotDoor CADtools for scaled production and engineering drawings (both which have fully featured plug-ins for the Adobe software). The cost is negligible (I pay for it all in one hour of work/month).

 

[MP Custom]

Watch Corel draw videos and learn, since you already bought it. Autocad won't be easier than corel draw.

I agree. If you have it, use it.
It soon becomes second nature

 

[bob]

The Adobe Creative Suite is the industry standard for a reason.

It's only an 'industry standard' because Adobe gives their stuff to school, students use because there is no choice, use Adobe or use nothing. They've never seen anything else thus they get turned loose on the world thinking that Adobe is all there is and therefore must be some standard or another. People who use Adobe, such as yourself, here this 'industry standard' nonsense and, having never heard anything to the contrary, think that it must be true.

 

[Humble PM]

If you accept incoming files, then unfortunately, Adobe is standard, but, hey there's always Canva Pro coming in from the newest generation.

Started with pagemaker and freehand in '92, photoshop in '94 (both in technical college). By the time we were delivering photographs to designers, publishers, ad-agencies, Photoshop and Illustrator were the norm.

It really is no different to Office V's Google suite. Yes, you can do collaborative work in GS, but the majority of professional office workers already know their way around the Office suite (desktop), the connections, the KBSCs etc. I know that open/libre office exist, hell, there's probably even a fork of Lotus out there somewhere, but for office work, there is primarilly Ofice, and for design/graphics, the majority of inbound files are Adobe (AGHUC*)