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We now have a laser engraver!

Next Day Sign — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:56:01 +0000

I would have posted this a week ago, but we only just now finished hooking the sucker up. The new engraver (which you probably already knew about if you follow our Twitter feed) is pretty cool – supposedly we can engrave anything that’ll fit in the engraver bed. We’re still working out a few minor kinks, but it works as advertised.

The best part is not having to hand-cut blank material to size – the laser cutter does all that for you. The image quality seems to be much better than the rotary engraver as well, with much finer detail on the lettering and a higher degree of precision.

Looking forward to seeing what we can do with this sucker…

Giant cryptological tool built by Mythbusters’ for sale

Next Day Sign — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:35:55 +0000

This is not exactly a sign, but it uses a lot of the same construction methods we use here in the shop – it’s a giant code wheel designed and built by Mythbusters’ Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage. They used MDF board and Cintra for the wheel sections and black cut vinyl for the letters. I’m impressed with the effort it probably took to line everything up properly.

Adam and Jamie are now auctioning the beast off with proceeds benefitting the Electronic Freedom Foundation (a very worthy cause).

There’s a video of the thing in action here.

(via Boing Boing)

‘Ninja Entry’ sign

Next Day Sign — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:08:23 +0000

(Via Boing Boing who via-ed it from somewhere else…)

Increase your business with ‘Rolling Billboards’

Next Day Sign — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:04:25 +0000

One of the cheapest forms of advertising available (if not the cheapest) is vehicle advertising. According to this post at Marketing Minefield, when you consider the cost per impression, vehicle advertising is nearly fifty times cheaper per impression than direct mail. You don’t even have to invest in costly full vehicle wraps – simply putting the name of your business and some contact information can make all the difference. Depending on your business, a single sale made through vehicle advertising can pay for the entire cost of vehicle lettering.

Next Day Sign offers full-service vehicle lettering, from design to installation – from motorcycles to semi-trucks. Vehicle lettering is a great way to attract attention to your business during the warmer months. (Plus, Meg likes to be outside…)

Seth Godin talk includes lots of bad signage

Next Day Sign — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 15:19:11 +0000

While it is worth checking out on its own merits, Seth Godin’s talk on broken-ness (watch it – you’ll see what he means) includes lots of examples of bad signs.

Recent work: Plexiglass wall graphics

Next Day Sign — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:36:11 +0000

By way of updating a previous ‘work-in-progress’ post, here’s the finished product of the plexi wall signs we mentioned a while back. The photos don’t really do the installation justice, but needless to say we’re very happy with them.

Recent Work: Car lettering

Next Day Sign — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:15:37 +0000

We recently did some vinyl lettering on one of our client’s vehicles, a Porsche racing vehicle. We will eventually be adding some striping on both sides and around the front, but the numbers turned out nicely – a simple yellow and black vinyl application.

Work in progress: Plexiglass Wall Graphics

Next Day Sign — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:58:28 +0000

While some of our jobs are quick, one-day turnaround affairs, others require meticulous attention – like this set of plexiglass signs we are producing for a local doctor’s office. While most people don’t give much thought to the amount of care and detail that goes into producing signs like these, the end result is usually a reward in and of itself.

I wish I could claim some credit for these, but Meg has handled the job from start to finish – except for the design work, by local designer Paul Neff (who did a bang-up job, as the signs themselves attest). This is all vinyl lettering applied to matte-finish plexi. The rear side of the plexi is covered in etch vinyl hexagons, while the rest of the pieces go on the front. Below are some photos of the assembly process – the finished pieces will be affixed to the wall with small metal standoffs to help provide shadowing for the letters from the overhead lights.

Front-side copy, after weeding - awaiting masking tape.

Close-up of weeded vinyl.

More pictures after the jump…

Plexiglass hexagons, still wrapped.

A table full of vinyl, awaiting assembly.

Megan weeding some of the vinyl copy.

Hand-placing color vinyl copy.

Taping weeded vinyl.

The finished signs, laid end-to-end.

Finished panel, close up.

Bad Signs

Next Day Sign — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 19:15:27 +0000

I don’t know what this sign means. By definition that makes it a bad sign. ‘Dont give yo-yo’s to children’ perhaps? It’s a British sign, so maybe it’s ‘Mind your pocketwatches’. I don’t know. But I found it at a Flickr gallery entirely devoted to bad signs. There are many more where this one came from, trust me.

Not-so-recent work: Agency of Record

Next Day Sign — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:56:56 +0000

A while back – last Fall, I think – we were contacted to do a couple of signs which appeared in two episodes of the Adobe-sponsored online series Agency of Record, by the same folk who brought us You Suck at Photoshop. The first was a logo for a fake company and the other was an Adobe logo sign. The former was paricularly fun because the logo was supposed to look as if some of the letters had fallen off, so we ended up doing the missing letters in etchmark vinyl to imply a shadow where the letters had been affixed. The production crew added some double-sided tape to enhance the effect a little bit.

Here, for your enjoyment, are both episodes…