mforsman

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Everything posted by mforsman

  1. mforsman

    Great Graphic Resource

    For jobs that you need little icons: http://www.thenounproject.com/
  2. mforsman

    Great Graphic Resource

    Glad I could help!
  3. mforsman

    Black Friday.. Cyber Monday...

    While that would be really nice, their prices are already so low in comparison to other shops that I tend to doubt that there will be anything.
  4. Hahaha great post. Goodluck with the wife!
  5. mforsman

    Anyone know the New DirrecTv Font?

    Something like a House Industries Brush style font might work as well.
  6. mforsman

    What Kind of Vehicle do You Drive?

    take the subway every day!
  7. mforsman

    business Cards

    I've always found that quality cards bring in quality business. Think about springing for letterpress, foil stamping, thicker material, custom die, something like that. You're whole business is about custom signs/vinyl? Why not use decals as your card. Buy a stamp with your contact info and stamp the app tape on a decal, then hand those out. It shows the product and sells your business.
  8. mforsman

    advice needed please

    It would be a lot of gradient overlays and outer glows.
  9. mforsman

    Hi everyone!

    Welcome! Lots of practice and experimenting will get you beyond what this forum can tell you. Not that this place isn't an amazing resource, but individual investigation is the most rewarding
  10. mforsman

    Logo Design

    Although this isn't a big job or something really that cool, I figure you guys might want to see it. Since my cutter showed up Friday, I've been really excited about the whole thing. I plan on paying for my vinyl by cutting for friends and friends of friends that go to my school (an art/design school). Since I had a few huge freelance projects that were sucking my soul I decided to set aside 2 hours tonight and see what I could come up with for a logo. I settled on the name "Quality Cut Vinyl", mostly because the domain name was available. I also picked up "Quality Cut Decals" since the sticker market is what I'm more targetted towards. I'm not hoping to open up a storefront to sell signs, but I figured that since vinyl and CNC's are the new hand painted, why not hark back to what used to be a standard sign. I found this image and it inspired the name http://www.typarchive.com/files/gimgs/17_quality.jpg, also the style. Then I just did some quick sketches, made a vector from scratch and had it wrapped up in an hour and a half. There's tons of work that could be done exploring options and playing with getting this lock-up right, but I'm happy with it for the amount of time spent. The example of it in vinyl is stuck on cheap picture frame glass where i've been testing and practicing. Thanks, MDF
  11. Hey Guys, I'm slowly building a site and I wanted a quick way for people to estimate their price for a RTA decal. Hopefully this can help some of you. It's a form much like the sign expert's calculator: http://www.thesignexpert.com/TheSignExpert.com/Sign_Business_Free_RTA_Vinyl_Price_Calculator.html First off is the code you'll drop in to the HTML of your site, this goes where you want the actual calc to show up. <form name="autoSumForm"> <p>Width (inches)</p><input class="right" type=text name="firstBox" value="" onFocus="startCalc();" onBlur="stopCalc();"> <p>Height (inches)</p><input class="right" type=text name="secondBox" value="" onFocus="startCalc();" onBlur="stopCalc();"> <p>Each Piece ($)</p><input class="right" readonly="readonly" type=text name="thirdBox"> <p>Quantity</p><input class="right" type=text name="fourthBox" value="1" onFocus="startCalc();" onBlur="stopCalc();"> <p>Total ($)</p><input class="right" readonly="readonly" type=text name="fifthBox"> </form> This needs to go in your header (between the <head> tags </head>) <script src="js/autoSum.js" type="text/javascript"></script> Now you need to create the autoSum.js file. The path above needs to lead to where the file autoSum.js is. I store my javascript files in a folder called "js". function startCalc(){ interval = setInterval("calc()",1); } function calc(){ one = document.autoSumForm.firstBox.value; /* this is the width box */ two = document.autoSumForm.secondBox.value; /* this is the height box */ num = (one * two) * (.07); /* this is where the width and height are multiplied, the .07 is the cost per square inch */ document.autoSumForm.thirdBox.value = num.toFixed(2); /* this displays the total per piece, with the number only allowed to go to two decimal places */ quantity = document.autoSumForm.fourthBox.value; /* just finding out how many they want */ total = (quantity * document.autoSumForm.thirdBox.value); /* quantity multiplied by the price per piece */ document.autoSumForm.fifthBox.value = total.toFixed(2); /* now we get to display the grand total limited to two decimal places */ } function stopCalc(){ clearInterval(interval); } Here's what the code looks like as given above http://www.qualitycutvinyl.com/estimate.html I hope this helps someone!
  12. Over the past 4 months i've been calling vinyl shops and getting quotes. One shop quoted me 4 different prices for 12x12", the exact same design and the difference wasn't minimal, after the second time I made sure that they were quoting the same material as well. My goal isn't to leave profit behind, my goal is to have consistant pricing for consumers. I bought a cutter because I was tired of being ripped off by the local shops. I want to make a square wage from any order, and that is what I'm going to do.
  13. mforsman

    Sample and/or Free Graphics

    When you're ready for a more diverse selection of vector images I love using this package: https://www.ultimatesymbol.com/
  14. mforsman

    Signblazer/Inkscape not loading eps's correctly?

    I use Adobe Illustrator. It's not a cheap program, but it's tools are unbelievable and you can do just about anything. It's powerful, and I highly recommend it.
  15. Everyone has told me what not to charge because its too low but no one will say what they would charge? At what point does the customer matter more than the profit that everyone wants more of. There's a hefty profit in the prices that I've quoted, and just because I can make more doesn't mean that I should be.
  16. mforsman

    screen printing for dummies.

    Here are a few videos of me printing flatstock (paper). In this video you can see the overall stroke/flood pattern. I pull a print, then lift the screen and flood back. Remove the media and begin again. In this second one you can clearly see after pulling a print and lifting the screen, how the ink fills the open mesh. It also shows the "off-contact" which is a few pieces of cardboard taped to the front of the screen. When you put your screen down, you do not want the mesh to touch the paper (or shirt) until you pull the squeegee. If it does, you will get a blurred print. I hope this helps. Youtube is your friend when it comes to learning how to screen print. Seeing the way different people work can teach you a lot of tricks.
  17. mforsman

    Newb Question for Vinyl

    the vinyl comes on a roll that has two layers. The top layer is the actual sticker material, the second layer is like the backing you'd pull off of a regular sticker. when you cut the vinyl, it draws all of the lines with a blade, its then your job to go in with tweezers/xacto blade and pull out the parts that you dont want. There is just enough adhesion on the top (vinyl sticker) layer that the design you want stays stuck to the vinyl. the goal is NOT to cut through both layers, but only the top. Once you've removed all of the parts you dont want "weeding", you apply application tape. This is like a masking tape that goes over the whole thing. It sticks to the top layer of the vinyl enough that the sticker backing falls away and the decal sticks to the application tape. Youtube "how to apply a vinyl decal" and you'll understand better.
  18. mforsman

    Logo Design

    Thanks for all of the tips and compliments guys!
  19. mforsman

    Recycling Symbol

    Here's one file with a whole bunch of different recycle symbols. recycle.EPS recycle.EPS
  20. mforsman

    New I phone 4? Screen protectors

    What do people use for screens? I'd love to cut my own.
  21. mforsman

    Cleaning ink on a screen??

    With the smell that comes from dehazer I'm not sure it's anything you can pick up in store.
  22. mforsman

    New I phone 4? Screen protectors

    making a template would be really easy. What company makes the static material? I'd love to get some for my own uses!
  23. mforsman

    screen printing for dummies.

    Inkjet printouts are best for complex registration jobs. Laser vellum warps. This is the book I SWEAR by. I've read the book by Fresner. Old, outdated, and he's out of business. It's true it will provide you with the skills, but this one's newer and honestly I have yet to find something Andy doesn't have the answer to. http://www.squeegeeville.com/products-and-services/screenprinting-today/ Also, Victory Factory is here on the east coast. I think silkscreensupplies is on the west coast. http://victoryfactory.com/
  24. mforsman

    Another new guy

    Welcome! I'm a fellow design student!
  25. I am currently providing RTA decals to friends and associates and someone just came to me with a request for a 9" x 38" decal. I currently have rolls of 24" material and I was wondering what the standard was for this. Can I take the scrap that is left over and re-use it on my laserpoint?