Sign Shop Upgrade
Sign builders call themselves “old timers” today if they got their start in the sign business before the computer became a regular tool. They scaled their designs by hand and fabricated their signs with power and hand tools. They took measurements with rulers and measuring tapes and routed letters with hand chisels. (While the commercial sign companies used CMC-type routing to make the large- cut letters, the smaller shops still made their router cuts by hand.) Before the advent of the desktop PC, shops kept their business accounts on hand-filled ledgers, sketched their designs on large drafting boards, and ran a truly manual business.
Jump ahead to this month, this year, this century, and no company can operate without a personal computer to run and administrate its business and shop. Typical as any other business, sign shops use their PCs for accounting and bookkeeping. They also utilize CAD systems to run drafting software on which they create new designs and then store them on the same machine. With the Internet came e- mail and the ability to easily send large graphic files, instant messages, accounting ledgers, and other business-related data electronically.
Furthermore, sign builders have revolutionized the use of large- scale print formats to create banner signs and large posters and wraps. The sign industry has made wide format printing with PCs a sub-set of its own business.
The personal computer has come home to roost in the sign business. Walk into any sign shop, and you’ll see PCs and Macs as common as hand tools. While businesses picked up on the usefulness of computers, a large part of the graphics industry followed Steve Jobs into his Apple and Mac systems. Those machines were very user- friendly, and their systems specialized in high-end graphic resolutions that made them designer-friendly. As one systems engineer put it when asked what he looks for in a good graphics computer, he said, “Anything with an Apple on it.”
“Advertising agencies, publishing houses, and others got comfortable with Macs and, for the most part, are all still using them,” says Jerry Stephens, owner of Woodsigns by Design in Rancho Cucamonga, California. “However, computer-aided sign-making and vinyl graphics really didn’t get going until the end of the 1980s, by which time Microsoft had brought out Windows to compete with the Macs. Built-in hard drives became the norm. Microsoft also brought a lot more money to the table, creating loads of new software to run exclusively on Windows platforms, and somehow most sign shops ended up with desktop PCs.”
Stephens (who remembers using hand chisels and mallets to cut some of his signs) continues, “Software becomes more and more the determining factor in computer capability. Software programs not only give routers X- and-Y-movement (back and forth, like a plotter), but they can now add a Z-axis (up and down) so that full three-dimensional modeling is possible. Programmers can now invest a bit of extra time to make their product usable on either Windows or Mac OS, and there are also plenty of ‘bridge’ programs that can interpret a wide range of different files from one operating system to another. The next thing to watch for will be a wide proliferation of Linux platforms, which is much faster than either Windows or Mac.”
As for sign-making software, “it can be a real time-saving tool over using plain-page layout graphic design software, because of the built-in functions of scanning, vectoring, bitmap editing, and output to a device all within the same program,” states Gary Lund of Reece Supply in Irving, Texas.
Lund explains that, with the signbuilding software, a shop can design a sign and then send it to an output device like a printer or router, where the data from the design will create the sign. In short, the sign software helps design the sign and then creates the sign on the media for which it was intended.
“The computer reduces design time for making most complex signage as well as ‘democratizes’ the design of signs so that someone other than a sign painter can make good, quality sign layouts and produce competitive signage,” adds James Ramsden, president of CADlink in Ottawa, Canada. Ramsden’s company offers SignLab (vinyl sign-making and digital sign-printing), EngraveLab (awards/engraving), EngraveLab Laser (laser-engraving), ProfileLab (profile-cutting, wood-working, cabinet-making), and Photoscript (digital-printing RIP) programs. “The computer had facitilated the introduction of new sign production technologies that lower the cost of sign production and increase the array of products that are available to the end- customer, as well as increase the number of suppliers to the market. It has accelerated ‘specialization’ in the industry.”
“They have added efficiencies in the design and production of signage, as well as opened up the market to new types of signage,” continues Ramsden.
Graphics were the bane of PCs and the boon for Macs and Apple- operating systems. However, PCs used DOS, a Windows-based operating system that let them mix software from different manufacturers, while the Apple OS relied on only software written by Apple. Those computers could not run the non-Apple-based software, and the Mac/ Apple market almost disappeared.
The graphics industry saved MAC/Apple computers from disappearing. The result: When you enter a sign shop, you see MACs and Apples mixed in with PCs that come from any number of manufacturers.
A Mac, Apple, and PC all run an operating system (technically stated, OS) that drives the computer and allows users to work in the PC’s system. The OS starts the computer, identifies all its components, puts up a user-friendly Graphic User Interface (GUI) like a Windows desktop, and puts the user in charge of the machine. So many other things happen as well, but suffice it to say, the OS gives the user the tools to work with the computer.
The OS also helps run the different applications and programs loaded into the PC. The OS allows the .exe file in the application program to open that application on the computer and run it. When you want to use a word processor like MS Word, its .exe file executes the commands in the Word application program that allows that software to run on a PC using Windows. The same series of events happens when you run any application program on a PC. In the sign industry, which is very graphics-oriented, a sign shop has to consider a PC’s hardware configuration.
“Buy a computer dedicated to your work,” advises Lund. “You don’t need a sound card and speakers, but you do need a good video card and monitor. It doesn’t need to be the newest or the best. Generally, it’s a good idea to run with a processor speed of around 2.0 GHz to 3.0 GHz at the top end. You should have a minimum system RAM of 256 MB to 1 GB for the digital printer shop. The video card should be 128 MB or larger (not shared with main memory). Storage can be anywhere from 40 GB to 200 GB for the wide format printer shop.”
“Now what you need would be plenty of memory (512 Megs minimum), but even more if your shop is involved in complicated printing operations,” adds Stephens. “Storage capacity is immense now, with 120 gigabytes or more being commonly available on hard drives. For most sign shops (even those with CAD/CAM routing setups), a good, solid system with a math coprocessor (built in automatically on newer units) to handle the complicated formulas in graphics, plenty of storage capacity, and the fastest operating speeds available will be all the computer power they need.”
Components aside, when asked what makes a good sign shop computer, Jason Brown, systems engineer for Xnihilo Systems in Salem, Massachusetts, replies, “It’s all about RAM (Random Access Memory). These big, powerful processors are great for motion and moving graphics, but to make it function when you’re working with any static graphics, you need RAM.”
Sign shops make their living producing graphics, and unless a better graphics computer comes along, Apples and Macs will always be the machines of choice for the design work, while the administrative work will run on PCs.
Copyright Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation Nov 2004