Would your business survive?

[Bigdawg]

..Still I cannot for the life of me understand why some would take offense at the thought of being able to hand letter in this trade.

That's not what I take offense at... what I take offense at is the total lack of respect from an old-timer such as yourself that some of us GREW with the trade instead of dying with it.

I started out in the old days of typesetting... learned from the hot lead guys... cut color from ruby and zipatone and was one of the best at what I did...

but here's a news flash... the old days are gone. While the admiration for your skill is there (do you not get that when you post a thread like this most just read "look at me... look at how great I am and how you suck" no matter what you write?), it isn't an efficient or cost-effective way to do signs and the REALITY is that no one is going to pay for it. The words "starving artist" comes to mind.

So no... I don't have to learn how to handpaint lettering to appreciate the subtlety and lines of typefaces, I've been tracing them since I was a little girl. I don't have to know how to handpaint to make a good, readable sign... I know for sure how it will look before I use the first piece of material. I don't have to know how to handpaint to be a signmaker. Period.

 

[omgsideburns]

i don't need a sign, i need a gun.


...


no, i can't hand letter. i can barely write my name. i grew up with computers, and it's what i know.

 

[Techman]

First hand experience.
From what I see almost no one has a clue on what it would be like to endure a catastrophe at the level of Katrina. That storm blew entire towns of the map.

Yes you could survive. In fact you would survive. But just barely..

Fist you would find a generator and a fuel supply and secure food and shelter. That is the easy part. You would get plenty of work because some business owners would have some means of money on hand. You would be smart and NOT do work for anyone on a promise. Unless it was someone you knew well. I never got paid for several jobs done on trust. They simply never recovered enuf to pay.

The difficult part would be getting supplies and fighting off the out of town vultures who will trailer in their own supplies and beat you to death on prices. I ran out of supplies the very fist week. I used up every sheet of coro, and every roll of vinyl.

Plastic sheets were impossible to get. Paint was every where. I did a number of hand painted windows using good old latex.

To those who say they could survive on their just a brush are deluding themselves. Lots of people made do with just some paint and a scrap sheet of ply wood picked up from a destroyed roof.
Every one knew that the rough hewn hand slopped sign was teh best they could do. Do no one paid any attention to that problem.

 

[sjm]

Pat no one asked you to judge,...there other ways of producing signs without a brush that do not need electricity,silkscreening and dimentional work comes to mind,..one could hand cut the letters,..My question was and still is how many have the skills once the "grid goes down" and or are you a prisoner of technology,..thus a victom if you don;t have access to the electrical power to run it,....It would only seem practical that one would attain a certain amount of skill if they practiced the trade long enough to be of service to their community in an emergency if need be,....not to just make a buck,....hell anyone can call themselves a sign painter all they have know is their abc's and ten numbers,..

Thinking if you are looking to make a buck when your community also ails from your same predicament is somewhat disgusting. Whether with brush or computer. Though I suppose you were not thinking along those lines.

Praise be to the Red Cross. Just my 2 cents of course.

 

[UFB Fabrication]

I guess it really depends. If its a area or local thing than yes. Fire up my computor safe inverter gennie to run the office. Get on the celly and go find a trailer mounted industrial generator even if it 300 miles away. We could only run Half the equipment and 2 welders at a time. This actually happened a few years ago. It did suck but we got by. If it was state or regional I would likely give a fat rats a** about the shop and Pack up the camper and head for some place else. A state wide power outage would be chaos from all the lazy sob's that cant cash the welfare checks and rely on everyone else to take care of them. I dont have gold buried in a jar, all my money is in some cyberspace account and my cash in my pocket is normally less than the guy downtown selling pencils. If it was world wide and we go back to the wild west days I have enough skills to be able to hunt, fish and barter for other needs providing the world remained civilized which I highly doubt. That scenario is left for thin tin foil hat guys down in their bunker with 10,000 bottles of water.

 

[Techman]

Get on the celly and go find a trailer mounted industrial generator

You won't have a celly,, and you wont have the fuel to run a big genarator if you can afford it at about 15 bux a day just for a 5,000 watt generator.


Please, remove all thoughts about any modern convenience. There wont be any. We were back the stone age for weeks. No fuel, no phones, no cells, no power, no tv, no radio no, we didn't have any modern convenience. No banks to get cash, no atm, no credit cards, nothing.

 

[iSign]

signs are messages and messages are made up of words,...Words are made of letters and that my young friends is the very basic fundamental element of the trade you have chosen to practice

the glaring omission in this oversimplification is this:
before those letters make words into messages...

...you need something to say worth saying, and the ability to say it such that others recognize it's worth.

 

[round man]

Its not my fault some perceive this as a look at me I can do what you can't,... that's theirs,......As for trying to be holier than thou it was not my intention,..if some feel that way that's their insecurities coming out not mine,...I was only trying to point out how simple and possibly essential it is for anyone to learn to letter,.not just with a brush but even do it properly with a mouse,.. like bigdawg there is a understanding there I admire it didn't come from a software manual or help file,.....where do you think fonts come from? granted my scenerio was a bit harsh for some and for that I appologize,... Like I said and I'll say again it is beyond me why some take offense at the thought of learning the basics of lettering

As for those who persist in making this out to be a dying art or outdated part of the trade Dream on,..there's quite a few of us still out there and we ain't dead yet and don't plan on going away,..no matter how you try to portray us as dinosaurs to the public,..as it is those out there in the market place who know the difference more often than not will pay a premium price for hand lettered stuff or they don't get it,....

 

[signmeup]

Roundman, you're back peddling faster and faster. Now you're saying lettering with a mouse counts? How do you letter with a mouse?

Any idiot that can hold or bite onto a brush handle can hand letter. How nice it looks is a matter of practice and even then it's purely subjective. What looks good to me may not look good to you. I manage to make very nice signs without any hand lettering skills at all.

I have a lot of other archaic skills BTW. I'm very proud of them but I don't hold the view that you are a lesser being just because you can't make a Windsor chair with only antique hand tools or draw an airplane plan with a pencil, square and compass.

I'm sure your lettering is very nice and you should be proud of any skill you have learned. Just don't belittle other people who haven't mastered the same skills.

 

[acothran]

We make signs with electric operated equipment. I know my boss well enough to know that if we were without power for a long period of time and still had requests for signs, we would find a way to make them. We would find a way to put paint/ink on substrate...by generator, by hand, by stencil, by something. But...I think if major natural disaster nearly wiped south-central KY of the map, there wouldn't be a big need for digitally printed or traditional hand painted signs.

Say I have a real-estate company that is one of my main clients. I design & print business cards, sale sheets, and make all of their for sale and auction signs. Our city is without power after a huge tornado and they need a temporary 4' x 8' sign for their office that says "CLOSED - CALL 222-3423", just to let people know they aren't there and how they can reach them if they have a functioning phone. Do you think those people will care, or want to pay for, a sign that is hand painted (in the traditional sense)? I'm thinking some plywood, some spray paint, and a stencil will work for this application (see attached pic). It won't be pretty but it will be functional and when there is a crisis (I'm pretty sure it would take large disaster of some kind to wipe out electricity for three weeks) I think kerning, font, etc....will be the least of their concerns. I don't want to disrespect anyone who hand letters/paints signs. If I get a client that wants hand lettering on their truck, instead of vinyl, I'll send them your way.

My great-great grandfathers used to work the field with a mule-drawn plow. My great-grandfather and my grandfather (in the time I was growing up) used a gas-powered tractor. I'm pretty sure they both could've used a mule-drawn plow but they chose the tractor. By the time it got to my generation, we just used the tractor. It wasn't out of disrespect to them and it wasn't a way to "show them up" it was just the tool(s) used to do a job. Today a tractor is normally used to plow a field and an electric-operated device is used to produce the letters & symbols on a sign. Gas and electricity are two things that might not be around forever, but if that time comes....I'll survive.

Allen

 

[UFB Fabrication]

You won't have a celly,, and you wont have the fuel to run a big genarator if you can afford it at about 15 bux a day just for a 5,000 watt generator.


Please, remove all thoughts about any modern convenience. There wont be any. We were back the stone age for weeks. No fuel, no phones, no cells, no power, no tv, no radio no, we didn't have any modern convenience. No banks to get cash, no atm, no credit cards, nothing.

We also wont have the need for gold leaf, one shot, pin striped Harley fenders and boars hair brushes either.

While I like looking at signs that are done by hand and think they are close to art. Letterheads dont be so impressed with yourselves that you think the only true signs are done by hand. I am actually impressed that you can operate a keyboard with a stick with the rubber tip off grandmas cane in your hand.

BTW my 3 year old niece can paint with a brush too. She cant on the other hand operate welder, bend neon or run a boom truck.

 

[round man]

The only appology I have made is for the harshness of the scenerio I put forth to make my point,.... as for backpeddling my intention was not so stupid to think everyone needed to know how to hand letter so much as they need to learn the basics of lettering,..never was it my intention that I felt it was necessary that all had to become hand lettering artists,... just learn the basics,...ie,...letter forms spacing,kerning layout,..maybe I am at fault for not being more clear here,... in my second response I mentioned there are many ways to do signage without having to use a brush,...I guess I'm not all that good at getting my message across...yet I see many who adamantly say they do not need these skills,...maybe we have to agree to disagree as the discriminations here aren't going to go away,...I never intended any ill will towards any here,yet it seems I have offended some of you,....guess I'll give up on this effort as it seems as though it is only causing ill will amongst us and I see no good coming from that,...hopefully I got some of you to think about this about this in an objective manor

 

[mollygrubber]

Sounds like we went from power outage to nuclear attack.

Don't those on this board have others throughout the country (Grids) that would help them out in this type of need, don't they? Customers are going to get signs somehow if that's what they consider a priority.

Maybe it's not, "could you survive", but are you able to find a way to survive and sell to those needs. As an example, do you have contacts with the municipal works, because they won't have enough directional and warning signs if it affects all the power in the city.

Money wise do you have enough to pay the business expenses, because the banks are still going to expect a check on the other side of the country. (computers don't have feelings)

 

[acothran]

round man - If I read your last post correctly, I totally agree.

Letter forms spacing, kerning layout, etc are important fundamentals that should be learned by everyone and will make each of us a better sign maker.

Being able to hand letter/paint signs is not a fundamental requirement to being a good sign maker. It is an art and just one means to an end.

Allen

 

[iSign]

My friend, I think you have just shown us a far better skill in your last post then in the rest of this thread. Without choosing sides or even entering the original debate, I will comment on this last post by noting the old lesson used here:

You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away, know when to run.

I think you have made the right choice here!

 

[Jillbeans]

Letter forms spacing, kerning layout, etc are important fundamentals that should be learned by everyone and will make each of us a better sign maker.

Being able to hand letter/paint signs is not a fundamental requirement to being a good sign maker. It is an art and just one means to an end.

Allen

I agree 100%.
And to answer your question, yes.
Love....Jill

 

[Bigdawg]

Beat me to it Jill. Good post Allen

 

[Fatboy]

To begin with ...I think it is a completely ridiculous question. That type of stuff does,nt even happen in Africa......

 

[mark in tx]

If the power went out, I'd be happy that my letterpress can run by a foot treadle.

 

[Gino]

WOW !!

Not much to say other than this could've been a very interesting thread had it been worded better from the beginning.

You're right round..... writing or getting your point across is not your strong suit. Had you started out by saying how many really were taught or learned the fundamentals of lettering... or how many have come up the ranks learning sound hand lettering techniques.... this might've worked. However, people have entered into this industry from all angles throughout the decades.

• How many silk screeners with a good eye for layout learned to hand letter. How many lefties taught themselves to hand letter as a rightie ??
• How many sign people make electric signs, channel letters or just bend neon for a living are you omitting ?? Aren't they skilled in an area that requires electric ??
• How many people began sweeping floors or delivering signs to be shooshed through to designing on a computer because of the keen eye and sense of design without picking up a brush ??

No, your way of wording this in my opinion has just alienated you from both sides here.... both hand letterers and computer nerds.

I'm an old hand letterer and pictorial artist and now use the brush so seldom.... I've become very rusty at doing this.... although I did it for 30 some years while changing over and following technology and the general scheme of our industry.

It's kinda like being on that Merry-Go-Round' and not reaching out for that 'golden ring'. If you don't reach out, you'll never get there. Same idea if you don't play the lottery. If ya don't play, ya can't win.

So for those that have reached out, grabbed the 'golden ring'.... they have gone to the next level, while you lately.... seem to be wallowing in this hand lettering is great theory, which is cool, but not needed to be rubbed in so many faces.

​

 

[charlie3238]

I'd finally get a chance to use that sniper rifle and belltower that I've been saving up for...

X2