Time for my morning rant. Terminology!

[myront]

I just recieved a powerpoint file to revise and print. Powerpoint is the most common program used by the military. It's the only one authorized throughout. Anyway the file comes with 4 slides and a request to combine a 1 slide with 2 others. All of which I don't have a problem with. What I do have a problem with is this request "roughly 36" wide by 24" long"

Couple of wrongs here. Can you see them?
1. Roughly? Why not just create the signs to specific dimensions? You can do that in PPT. Guarantee I'm going to have to rearrange things.
2. "Long"? Who in their right mind uses such a term to describe anything but a snake or a lumber? Long, in my book, would always describe width. Never height! And, actually, I wouldn't use that term to describe a sign or "board" as they say. Width and Height are the correct terms!

 

[bannertime]

man, I've even had someone say depth x length. That was mind-boggling. I've had people try to correct me on the arrangement i.e. I say a 3x8 banner (pointing to a 3ft H x 8ft W banner on the wall) and they say "oh you mean 8ft x 3ft?" No, I mean, look at the banner on the wall pal.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

man, I've even had someone say depth x length. That was mind-boggling. I've had people try to correct me on the arrangement i.e. I say a 3x8 banner (pointing to a 3ft H x 8ft W banner on the wall) and they say "oh you mean 8ft x 3ft?" No, I mean, look at the banner on the wall pal.

I've never could understand the length for height thing (never had someone say depth for any of those), but changing the arrangements I can understand as different industries list attributes in different order. It all depends on what their background is in. I just look at it and get what I need from the orientation.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

I was always told W x H in that order

fixed the typo

 

[WildWestDesigns]

I was always told W x L in that order

I was first told w x h. But I've gotten just as many people with switching it around. That I just go by the context of the shape of whatever is being talked about. In coding it's also width, height when doing attributes of objects.

Length I've only dealt with when dealing in 3D space. USPS packages etc. Otherwise it's Z-axis.

 

[Johnny Best]

I was always told W x L in that order

Exactly, 36"x24" (wide x long)

 

[Gino]

How does it fit a 2" x 4" x 96" ?? Can you say hand me that 4 x 2 ??

Ins't it just easier to say 24" left to right and 36" up and down or top to bottom ??

 

[Notarealsignguy]

Exactly, 36"x24" (wide x long)

I mean w x h haha. I always try to sneak in a couple of extra inches

 

[Gino]

That's what you tell your wife too, huh ??

 

[Notarealsignguy]

That's what you tell your wife too, huh ??

She smiles and nods. She is very supportive

 

[bannertime]

We've always been WxH except for 18x24. It's very hard for me to say 24x18 when talking about yard signs. And I get confused when looking at different vendors that don't specify HxW and just have different combination of numbers. Especially with coro. Like just tell me 24x18 18in flutes or 24x18 24in flute. I don't know.

 

[myront]

I don't like 24 x 18. It's 1 size and 1 orientation. 18 x 24 "Portrait" or "Landscape". I prefer to see/hear a numerical order so even if you tell me 24 x 18 I'm going to ask "Portrait or Landscape"? When I type the name of my files it's 18 x 24 blah blah blah, never will I type it the other way around because it's not numerical. How does one know the orientation? Open the file or look at the thumbnail.

 

[ColorCrest]

Mrs. Lightfoot taught in grade school to express width as "X", height as "Y", and depth as "Z" as in the same order as the alphabet. Thereafter, my instructors for wood shop, metal shop, drafting, computer science, etc., have never disagreed with her.

The mnemonic reminder is “X” is crossed (across), “Y” is high, as the letter has its arms up, and “Z” is front-to-back as the letter is formed when drawn. The method provides the answer to whether the orientation is portrait vs landscape in the case of most graphic design.

 

[Jburns]

this way - the same way we refer to picture frames

 

[James Burke]

I was always told W x H in that order

fixed the typo

WINNER!

 

[Billct2]

I'm with Gino, I always ask it that way, left to right/top to bottom.

 

[GB2]

If you look in any of your sign supply catalogs, you will see that all the materials are listed WxH

 

[iPrintStuff]

This isn’t even an America thing, worldwide standard is width then height.

I had a customer send in an 183cm x 100cm sign (exactly the same as they’d ordered before, just different dimensions)

So I changed their layout, which was landscape anyway, saved the file to PDF, then had the file name include the dimensions. I.e. school sign 183cm x 100cm.

So we sent an electronic PDF then a proof approval form they need to sign and send back. Which they did.

customer emails a couple days after receiving their sign saying we made it the wrong way and tried to blame us for not confirming it was 183 wide and not High.

pointed out they had a (clearly) landscape sign proof (one quick glance and it’s almost a 2:1 ratio with width to height). The file nam included the dimensions and they had signed the proof approval form saying they are responsible for layout, text etc.

lomg story short, they ordered another sign!

even reading graphs, I always remember it as “along the corridor then up the stairs” and it’s just standard across all measuring??

 

[Ian Stewart-Koster]

ask portrait or landscape - this saves confusion...
but I can never figure the USA convention of specifying timber or other things by the smallest dimension first.
We'd talk of a beam being 8x4 (inches) or 200x100 (mm), or a sheet being 10x5 ft.
Convention here is the bigger number comes first- except when specifying corflute/coroplas - where the first number specified is the direction of the flutes, so 600x900 has the flutes running left to right in a portrait panel, along the 600mm side, but 900x600 has the flutes running up and down - along the 900 length.

 

[ams]

It's the same thing with architects. We don't understand their language, they don't understand ours.