Shrikezero

Despite the thousand or so signs I've engraved I am still learning. Here is a little something I learned today. When engraving Gravo-tac or a similar "raised lettering" adhesive material... Do not leave off the weeding and cleaning until after the weekend! All the chips will embed themselves into the edges of the adhesive. Instead of a quick brush and vac, you get to spend hours with a toothpick cleaning each and every nook and cranny.

I know why I am stuck at work today. And subsequently why I am burning daylight perusing teh forums. Why are you here?

+1

I've always had trouble with PVC not holding up well in direct sun. Also I'd be leery of mounting it against the corrugated aluminum. I think you'd have problems with heat.

I haven't used the others, but I am very happy with Flexi. Don't underestimate the utility of being able to do design work in program. If the option is there, you'll eventually find a use

Welcome! I had to jump into cutting with both feet and no net. Also my prefered learning environment. On these forums, I've found my own "stupid" questions often aren't that stupid. And there are a ton of people dealing with the same issues. Also this place has core group of high end users, who can answer just about any question.

You can make a customer prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they have the right to copy. How??? Make Steve Jobs send you a personal email?? And what customer will ever come back to your shop with such an onerous requirement. You do the absolute safest thing you can legally do. Which is to only use your own artwork and text. No school logos, No municipal logos, No team logos, no business logos. Good luck staying in business. Or you can have a customer tell you they have the authority to use a piece if artwork covered by copyright in writing. Most easily with a Hold Harmless. At some point you have to take a customer's word. The Hold Harmless puts you in the position of being able to say that without a doubt the customer made the claim that they had the right to use the artwork. Again, not a lawyer. Not advising. Engaging in a discussion only.

Again, not a lawyer. But if a poacher walks through your door and requests the graphics and they willingly sign the form, they're not going to have much of a case against you.

Kinko's used to have (probably still does) a form they'd make you fill out for material that looked like it might be under copyright. Basically it said the person was assuring Kinko's they had the right to copy the material. That way if someone/company comes back they could shift responsibility to the customer. I'm no lawyer, but I bet it something like that would be good for this situation. Any lawyers in the house??

It looks to me like HWA is straight up graphics. I doubt there is a typeface to match. If you just need the logo it looks like it would be fairly easy to copy.

The posters you buy retail (Like that Motley Crue poster in your 14 year old selfs room) are printed on coated paper using a full blown 4 to 8 color offset press. If this is what you want to do, talk to a printer and see if they'll work a deal with you for short run posters (100). Some printers will set up a regular run in which they impose a bunch of posters, etc from a bunch of customers. The upside is they'll charge less. The downside is you get the posters on whatever coated stock they use in the run and you have to wait and/or hope for space on the run. There are also print shops that run presses like the Indigo, that are designed for short run 4 color work. The quality is no where near what you get from an inkjet or large offset press, but the cost is usually reasonable. The ones you get from Fastsigns or similar copy/sign shop are printed on a wide range of possible papers. Everything from plain white to actual canvas. Look through Epson's materials for starters. You can get most of the same materials for less from third-parties, but it will give you a good idea what's out there.

I have a few minutes to kill at work and it looks like its been a while since we had a game related topic... So, what do you play? I play: Borderlands Dark Age of Camelot Plain Sight Half Life 2 Left 4 Dead Gratuitous Space Battles

ainakeaboy, you were also asking about software. Depending on the artwork supplied, I've used a ton of different programs. MS Publisher, QuarkXpress, Pagemaker, Adobe's stuff, various freeware. I'm a slut for new toys. Lately however, I've been using Gimp for raster images. Photoshop is expensive, Gimp is free. For vector art I prefer Illustrator, but CorelDraw came bundled with some piece of equipment I bought and does almost everything I want. My Art Director father would grimace if he knew, but I tend to use Publisher for imposition and down & dirty layouts. That's mostly due to, um, frugal, bosses. And I have been known, in time of duress, to use Word for layouts. Although thats a last ditch, hail mary kind of play. Actually, I take that back. The time I used Excel for a layout would qualify as the hail mary.

You print with an aqueous on the Avery vinyl? Fellers? I'll need to look into that. You know, I bet if someone wanted inkjet-compatible, UV-resistant feral badgers... Fellers would suddenly have them in stock. The lightfast rating does sound (ahem) slightly grandios, but all I care is that the ink doesn't fade for the next 5-10 years (or whenever is after I leave/retire:)). Epson make the same claim for the R-1900's UltraChrome inks.

It looks like it is probably Futura. Although AVON may have a proprietary version. Possibly one of these two could work for you. http://www.fonts.com/findfonts/detail.asp?pid=412901 http://www.fonts.com/findfonts/detail.asp?pid=201406 I use font.com's Search by Sight all the time. Even if it doesn't get a match it can get you in the right territory. http://www.fonts.com/FindFonts/SearchBySight.htm