Creative Outline Letters

[joe]

A creative drop shade will show off lettering and save time in finishing. One of the trickiest steps in making a sign is find the perfect letter color. It's so important for two reasons. First is the emotional effect but also is getting enough contrast to make the panel readable. I've found you can't be all that subtle with the headline copy. It needs to instantly convey a company image.

We have about three methods in lettering. Hand painting, Vinyl Lettering and my favorite is cutting letters.

If you cut the letters from something like PVC, DiBond, or HDU the door is wide open for texturing, painting, sculpt nouveau and gilding. It makes for extreme sharpness and by a little offsetting it achieves extra depth and quality. It's a natural with a CNC.

[rb99]

Thank you Joe

[bobmoore]

I see that adobe has a drop shadow feature in their software. I don't have adobe so I tried making my own in vcarve. Seems pretty easily done. Do you ever make the shadow larger or smaller than the original text Joe?

[mtylerfl]

Thank you for the great tips and photos, Joe!

[joe]

That's a shame adobe has dropped their shadow effects. A simple outline is one way to go. After that you simply shift the lettering a little off center. But in order to accomplish read shades and shadows a program for that purpose is necessary.

Yes I often increase the outline size a lot. Sometimes it's twice the size of the lettering. You have to play around to get exactly what looks good. If someone had shown me this technique when I first started out, I'd been better off. Once you start down this road it's hard to turn back. That's because most flat plain letters don't enough oompth in them.

[bobmoore]

That certainly does add some muscle to the text. Love the look of the Holmberg sign too.

[cowboy1296]

Joe, almost in the same words of Sam Colt. Shopbot made men equal, vision set us apart. And you have vision.

[joe]

Cowboy,

What a nice complement. Thank you.

What keeps us in this game is like mining for gold. Every once in a while we find a beautiful nugget. But you got to move lots of dirt to find a little gold. So lets keep our minds focused on the gold and not the dirt.

A simple outline around the headline copy improves it but there are times when you need to go crazy with a big fat drop shade. It's important to stretch one's design experiences. I'd suggest trying all sorts of techniques, saving them, then come back a few days later for a fresh look. You'll be surprised at what you find.

[gc3]

Very refreshing to see a true professional posting works...so many forums have gone to the way of social media type postings.

Thank you Mr. Crumley for reminding us that there are still shops that produce true works of art.