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Mon-Ami Childrens Nursery
Here’s a job that I’ve been working on for what feels like forever, loads of re-designs later this is the final design (I hope), you may recognize the banner at the bottom 😀 .
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13 Replies
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Nice job Steve, we balanced and laid out, IMHO, The banner/scroll does look a little familier!
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Hey-Hey!…nice one Steve…you’ve managed to tickle an old mans fancy (but we’ll save that for another post)…
is the title gold leafed? – tell us a little more about the size, construction and finish if you would…
more soon
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great job steve!
i like the colours and the layout they work well together. looks a more up-market type sign to the normal bright colours etc.
great work mate. -
Board is 8×4 9mm exterior medite, painted burgundy with black outline, main title is 18mm exterior medite with 45 degree routed edges, painted then 23k gilded letterfaces all other lettering and graphics in vinyl, should be done and up by the end of next week.
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Very “Classy” looking sign Steve – looks expensive and upmarket. I recognise Mikes scroll at the bottom.
Will you post a picture of the actual sign when it’s finished?
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Steve, suspecting it was the design we were looking at, not the actual sign, I’d be very interested to know which package and which settings you have used for the gilded effect – cus it looks bloomin’ convincing…
Other then Signlab I use Corel 9.
more soon
mikethesign
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Very nice design Steve, nothing like most of the nurserys round here. They all use very bright colour and fonts such as “Kids”. This is obviously for a more upmarket Nursery.
As Gray has asked how do you get people to pay for all that gold leaf? -
Gray,
the M of Mon Ami is approx. 300mm x 450mm, the whole title coverage is approx. 1300mm x 450mm and the typeface is fairly thin so I figure about 2 and half to 3 books of gold to do it (to those that don’t know a book of gold contains 25 sheets 80mm square of gold leaf) and at the moment I’m paying about £9 a book so I didn,t think less than £30 was too bad.
It will take around a litre of primer/undercoat and the same for gloss, 2 coats of each for the front and 2 primer/u-coat & 1gloss on the back, with drying time between coats it will take about a week to paint but it only takes 10 minutes to actually apply a coat of paint so not a lot of actual work goes into the painting.
It will take about 3-4 hours to gild the lettering using 1shot fast dry gold size, gilding is something I’m just learning as I go along so I will probably add more time for c*ck-ups and the vinyl as we all know won’t take long.
Finally it will take about an hour for 2 to fit, there is also a small 3×2 opening times sign in the job as well, all told its about £130 in materials and the price has been agreed at £830 plus vat and I got £400 deposit so it ain’t a bad job.Martin,
I have learned that if folk don’t know that you can do stuff like this then they won’t ask! She’d had a quote from another signmaker for less than half of what I would charge but he didn’t bother to go and see her all he sent was a list of costs for 5mm white foamboard and didn’t send any ideas. Rather than a customer asking “how much” I ask “how much do you want to spend to promote your business” or “what’s your budget for signs” basically you’re asking what do they think their business is worth!
The customer wanted a classy looking sign as the nursery is going to have a victorian theme for the decorating.Forgot to add for Mike that the gold effect on the layout was done using Fireworks and a plug-in called Eyecandy 4000, this will also plug-in for corel photo paint and most other photo stuff and is dead easy.
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Right this is the job finished 😀 sorry about the crappy picture quality
The small board is 9mm exterior MDF, all lettering is vinyl, the bear and everything else hand-painted with 1-Shot
The fascia was probably the worst one I have ever lettered, really bad plywood and awful paint job 🙁 -
Fine work Steve…
I can sympathise about the fascia – applied vinyl to a few crappy ones myself along the way.
more soon
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Steve I always go and see my customers, I thought all signmakers did untill fairly recently, I do a visual with a couple of different options and using a digital camera put the signs on the customers shop so they can see what it looks like, do you always ask your customers what their budget for signs is?
I have thought about this but was put of because I thought people wouldnt tell me for fear that I would just over charge them. Seams sensible to me as it gives you a better idea of what to do for them, I still feel that people would be suspicious though. -
Steve/Martin – I often ask my customers what their budget is for spending on signs – trouble is the b*st*rds never want to tell me – One guy even said to me – I’m not telling you because you’ll just charge me that.
Now I show them examples of different jobs – and indicate what they would cost to try and loosen their tongues. However, I must be a poor diplomat because the b*gg*rs still won’t tell me 😕
You know – this would be a great job if it wasn’t for the customers 😉
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…I must admit I always discuss what budget the customer had in mind – usually within the first few minutes. There seems little point in persuing any line of thought unless the customer has the funds to pay for it? I believe that when you work alone (or at least as a small unit) then such directness stops both you and the customer wasting each others’ time.
I’m always happy to advise them about what such work is likely to cost – but suggest a range of prices that start at a ‘sensible’ price (not cheap) upto a very high end option…that way, if they ‘gulp’ at even the lesser price then I may suggest they ask elsewhere – so I can get back to work!
This ‘dumping’ customers rarely happens as you learn to read the situation and manage it to your own benefit – i.e. if they want a Transit done but only want to spend £250 then first of all we get £50 of them for a design – which you price in at £300 (excl. their deposit) and then, when they fall for the design, you advise them that their £300 will only get them the sides and a logo on the back. On suggesting they can always have the rest of the back and the bonnet done another day for only £80 extra, they often go that extra mile to have it all done at the same time….end result £430 for the van…
I think Phill has said similar before…
just some thoughts
more soon
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