Halloween Parties

Halloween is only a couple weeks away and coming fast. Many of my friends are pondering how they wish to decorate their home for either parties or trick-or treaters. There are many themes to go for; festival, creepy, scary, historical, and the list goes on. It’s easy enough to pick up decoration items at the local costume store or the seasonal Halloween stores that pop up across town. And if you want something unique and cheap , don’t forget we’ve still got our ‘dollar menu’.

The dollar menu is a selection of smaller substrate signs (normally less than 2’x2′) available for $1. Then you can either buy your own  personal lettering for the sign, or buy just the sign to decorate yourself. It can be uniquely phrased then for your party theme, or it can declare the rules if costumes or sacrifices(BYOB) are required.

Have fun! Be safe! and beware of monsters!

Weddings and Birthdays

This weekend sure was busy, Cheryl drove out of town to celebrate her step-father’s 94th birthday, while I attended my friend’s wedding as a member of the bridal party. Each of us brought a sign gift to our respective parties. Cheryl brought a printed banner with over 25 pictures on it from across her step-father’s lifetime. The family enjoyed looking over the pictures, remembering moments in life from years past. 

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For my friend I gave her a 2′ x 2′ congratulatory sign for her wedding to be placed up at the location of the reception. I did not think much of it beyond being a nice touch and a gift. It turned out to be quite useful as the reception area that was booked was hosting two weddings at the same time. The sign, placed on a easel by the door, was just large enough to help attendants from the other wedding to stop from getting lost and stumbling into the wrong area. Signs can always be helpful and have more than one purpose.

Why Loco for Local?

The internet has made a big impact on the economy, it takes competition from a local level to a worldwide level. Shops are set up to make one particular product as fast and as cheap as possible, so why shop locally? Well there are many reasons why it’s more efficient to just pay the extra bucks to buy something locally.

1. Product Security. The biggest difference between the viral versus physical stores is the ability to touch and see the product or samples before a big purchase. To be aware of exactly what you are getting rather than a ‘guesstimate’.

2. Face to Face Service. Let’s say you get your product and there’s a mistake, it can happen anywhere in the world, maybe a misspelling, a blotch, the wrong material. If you buy locally you are able to directly express to a person your concerns and receive within moments a response. While e-mails to web-sellers may get either no response or the tag-line of ‘buyer beware’.

3. Last Minute Calls. This doesn’t always work, but sometimes you need something made and you need it in your hands as soon as possible. If you have a connection with a local vendor, they may be able to accommodate you or provide a reasonable alternative that you didn’t consider.

4. Saving Time. When you try and buy something on the web, you spend at least an hour online. AT LEAST. Using a search engine to look for what you want, trying to judge whether or not you think the seller is legit, if the product is what you want, entering in your personal information (billing and shipping location, then credit card information), sometimes you need to make an account just to make your purchase. And this isn’t including how long it takes if you get distracted. (No one gets distracted on the internet right?) When you buy locally, you may drive up to 15mins to the location, place your order in 5 mins, (if it even takes that long) and then drive back, but most likely you’ll use the drive time to stop and do other errands. A total of 35mins. (And if you’re able to call in your order then it’s only 5mins!)

5. Helping your Economy. When you buy locally you help your local economy. That business has the chance to grow, hire more employees that live in the area, perhaps even someone you know. Then those employees take the money they earn and if they spend it locally it creates a revolving system.

Removing old Vehicle Lettering

One of the reasons people are timid about getting vehicle lettering is of course the idea that it is never coming off again. Or that during the process of the removal the automobile will never look as good as it did before the lettering has been put on in the first place. We’ve all seen the cars on the streets with faded lettering or sticky residue remaining from where there had been a bumper sticker. You might have even seen it on my car if you were looking on the passenger side of it.

Well, I’m here to tell you that I’m just personally lazy when it comes to taking off the lettering on my car. I work in a sign shop 5 days a week, so for me I’ve just been putting off making my car as nice and shiny as it could be, but it is possible. The lettering that we put on your vehicle is called ‘permanent’ because for all standard purposes it is. However it is not permanent in the sense like a tattoo, and is in no way indestructible.

To remove the lettering all you need is the fine point of a blade, you’ll slowly lift up the edge of the lettering and then pull it off with your fingers. Depending on how old and brittle the lettering is it might break off in your hand. This process can take a long time depending on how much lettering you have on your vehicle, make sure to set aside hours to work on it before you begin, or plan that’ll you’ll remove only so much per day.

Once the lettering is removed you will have adhesive residue still remaining. At the shop we like to use a special chemical called Rapid Remover bought from RapidTac.com to remove the adhesive. Which I would suggest for any large scale projects, or multiple vehicles as it is very effective. If you’re looking to only work on your own vehicle or something more small scale then Goo Gone is also good at removing adhesive residue, which can be found in many local stores. Spray the chemical onto your vehicle, give it time to sink in, then with a hard plastic edge you can scrape the adhesive away. For a visual guide you can watch this video Rapid Remover placed up http://vimeo.com/46783839.

Back to Work Charge

There’s nothing quite like going back to work after a three-day weekend. It’s just enough time to get you to finish all those chores at the house and spend a day relaxing or having fun, and then realizing you really just don’t want to have to set your alarm the night before. Once that mood sets in then you begin to contemplate just how much you don’t want to go to work, and that’s no way to start the week when you know you’ll have a lot to do on your first day back. I know that we got a lot of work here at Next Day Signs for the first day back. (Poor Aaron, he comes in tomorrow after being out for a week, he certainly has a challenge ahead of him.)

However, if you want to keep your spirits up so you don’t feel drained at work, I have two suggestions. Positivity and movement. The first one is easy enough to state, but not so easy to implement. You’ve got to chase away those whining thoughts in your head of your dreading return, and find something that can help give you a little spark in the day. For me, it’s being able to listen to Pandora while I work, but something small can also do the trick. For example, changing your desktop image on your computer, I like to change mine with the landscape scenery images that are provided in my ‘Sample Pictures’ folder. Having a new image on my desktop draws my attention once in a while to appreciate it.

The second tip is movement, being stagnate is one of the fastest ways to lose your energy in the day. If you work at a desk sometimes you have to be a little creative about it, but it is possible. You can start with cleaning your desk and tidying it up if it isn’t already. If that’s already done then you could put something under your desk to occupy your feet with, such as a tennis ball or baseball you can roll back and forth. There are even places where you can buy little rowing pedals to have under your desk.

Hopefully these suggestions can help you get back into the swing of work! If you have your own tips, leave them behind in a comment.

What the weather brings

I would first like to start by saying congratulations to my colleague Aaron and his family, for the new addition to their family, a baby boy. Aaron will most likely be out for the week to help take care of the new little one. I’ll be sorting through his e-mail while he’s gone and will answer any questions sent in.

Secondly, Next Day Signs would like to advise any sign owners to keep an eye out for when the tail end storms of Hurricane Isaac sweep over Central Ohio. It’s possible that all we may get is some rain and a small bit of wind, however there have been many times when signs have been damaged by the strong winds brought in after a hurricane passing. Feather flags are the most susceptible to the gusts of wind and may want to be kept inside all day. Yard signs and banners may only need to be taken down for the worse hours and then put up again later in the day.

While our signs are weather proof, in the sense that they are not damaged by rain, cold or snow, we unfortunately cannot guarantee their safety during natural disasters. So please refrain from taking your signs into a volcano.

Many Hats Indeed

Author: Amanda

There are two things that I really love about working at Next Day Signs LLC. The first is that each day is different, rarely do we come across two days in the week that we’re working on the same sign orders (unless it is a rather large project.) The second is that the owner, Cheryl, is not the kind of person to just sit behind her desk and leave production work to everyone else.

Today was an adventure, Aaron had to take half the day off and our part time help wasn’t scheduled for the day, leaving just Cheryl and I in the store. Normally on a Monday this isn’t much of an issue, but we’ve been keeping busy and still had many jobs in production to do. One of the jobs consisted of 15 routed red 3mm PVC signs. Usually we leave these jobs to Aaron who has carpentry skills, but since he would be out Cheryl caught him in time to teach her in five minutes or less how to use the hand-held router.

Occasionally I would peek over from my work to see how my boss was managing. She was covered in red flecks of PVC, as was the counter and the floor, it was an image akin to an explosion of Valentine’s day confetti. However, she was not hindered by the sign debris, and swiftly completed the 15 signs needed. “Chief, Cook and Bottle Washer,” she proclaimed as she finished dusting off the specks, being an owner of not only a store but many ‘hats’.

Signs Point to Growing Economy

Author: Amanda

Today I have joined the exclusive designer club, as my computer was updated with the design software used by both Cheryl and Aaron (our designers). Now, I am not design artist, so I won’t be able to help with all the designs needed, but this will help speed up production as I will be able to design many of the signs we work with daily; magnets, yard signs, banners. And in the future, should we hire another employee with design experience, they shall be able to use the computer as well.

I’m happy to see the progress Next Day Signs LLC has been making. As many of us know, 2009 was a very hard year for all of us economically, and being in a sign business makes it easier for us to notice the swings in economy. Both by watching the amount of personal signs purchased and the types of business signs people buy: be it ‘liquidation sale’, ‘closing sale’, ‘coming soon’, ‘now hiring,’ and ‘now open’ signs.

It’s nice to see that three years later, not only are we catching up to where we use to be, but exceeding years prior. More new customers, more personal orders, and for the first time in a long time, ‘now hiring’ signs. Here’s to hoping we see more of these good signs.

The Trip Abroad

Author: Amanda

Dear Readers, Grandmother, I have returned from my trip abroad in which I traveled much of Germany and spent a few days in Austria. The trip was certainly an eye opener to the way our cultures differ, giving me a new perspective on my own. One of the things I loved in Germany was how common it was to take your dog with you wherever you went. Dogs could follow their owner into the train station, the mall, even restaurants, and the well behaved and trained dogs, as many of them were, didn’t require a leash. It made me miss our dog Casey very much who gets to come to work with us.

Another interesting aspect was how they handled their signage. In many of the villages trying to maintain their rustic appeal, banners were made out of a hemp material with their lettering dyed in. In other areas where they had old buildings, (200 or 500 years old) they used a sort of wallpaper material they would paste on the wall.  Regular banners or large scale advertisements were reserved for the train stations or more modern built sides of town.

Of course there are special occasions that would be exceptions to this. During my travels I happened to stumble across an open air concert held in Konigsplatz, Munich. Which is an open ground area between three roman looking buildings that date back to early 1800’s. The concert was brimming with people, but the grass was never disturbed as black tarp mats were set across the grounds first. Scaffold stages were erected on the steps of each building to help put on an amazing light show without blocking the view of the architecture of the building, and banners were hung along it’s sides. It was an amazing display of modern and ancient brought together, and by the end of the next day everything was restored to how it had looked before the show.

Framing outside the photo

Author: Amanda

We all get a little lazy with our homes and make lists for things we’ll set aside to do later. On either the holidays or a rainy weekend, some excuse to keep us from doing it at the present moment. As for myself, I have gone living in my apartment for nine months without hanging anything on my walls. My excuse was that I wasn’t sure if I would move out at the end of the year or not, but regardless, I started to put a few things up this weekend.

The white blank walls of my Spartan living conditions had never bothered me before, but it was nice to give it a bit of color. Of course I lacked the foresight to see my coming mistake. My few pictures look incredibly small on my large white wall, now I need more.

I think I’ll use the digital photos on my computer and make a nice collage to print out at work. Thanks to our 5′ wide Mimaki printer, I could make the final design any reasonable living room size I desire. I can have my print be with either the glossy photo finish, or a matte finish to help keep off light glares. Now this service isn’t just reserved to employees, you can get this too if you wanted.

Of course, it’ll have to wait for some holiday or rainy weekend till I get around to it. I’m taking a trip to Europe this week, so there will be no blog updates from me for the next two Mondays. We’ll see if someone else from the store will give this a try. If they do you have my apology in advance 😉