Can you ever offer too much?

Through a good portion of my business career I've often wondered about what services I should offer and quite possibly no longer offer. In the same breath, what products. Christoff Creations is a bit of an enigma in that regard because we sell one off vehicle graphics or mass produced. We make custom elaborate signs and banners but we also make very basic sale signs too. We've branched out into apparel doing iron ons on shirts and hats be it 1 or 2 or full production runs. We offer desk top publishing designing business cards, leaflets, posters, logos, and everything your heart desires. We've quite literally become a one stop shop for all of our customers needs.

It seems that as our customers needs have evolved so have we. There was a time where we didn't have the ability to do many of the services that are listed here and some of our customers as loyal as they are were beginning to leave so they could get package deals for all of their marketing needs. What I did next is something that I believe highly in. I asked my customers what they needed and what they wanted from us. As scary as this can of worms may be to some of you, it is what customers want to hear. I've had some say you're spreading yourself too thin and that you can't offer everything. To that I say why can't we. All of it is based on successful designs. If you can draw it and draw it well, then everything else falls right into place. In a nutshell we offer to our customers what they want because we can.

We don't make business cards because we can't compete with other businesses that are from a pricing standpoint. What we will do is design them and help our customers get the best deal that we can by outsourcing it to people or businesses that we trust. That trust has been built up over years. Not to say that we won't try out someone new by any stretch. That would be totally hypocritical of us as we were once brand new to the game as well. If it weren't for various companies trusting us we would not be where we are today.

Stay creative my friends

Trimming iron ons with a vinyl cutter

I've been working on perfecting a method of printing iron ons and trimming them with my vinyl cutter. I don't like manually trimming the white border off of an iron on but it's necessary to get a professional look. My cutter doesn't have an optic eye so I had to come up with something that would fulfill the need. These are some of the tricks I used and the finished product as well. This methodology works for me with my set up but may vary slightly for yours. I used an AIP 28 inch vinyl cutter for this run and it managed the task flawlessly. Step 1 is setting your parameters for the drawing. I use CorelX5 so I will reference it from that standpoint as it's what I know. Draw up a 6 inch by 6 inch square and export it out as a jpeg. You need to do this because when you select full page print you will need to measure it to see how accurate the print is. Mine measures out to 8 inch by 8 inch using this method. What that now tells you is that your printer is capped at the 8 inch margin for the width. Something that I hadn't taken into consideration was the height. The distance between the rollers and cutter blade is critical. If the print border falls into that zone the paper could slip out of your rollers and that's all she wrote for that one and it will leave you back at square one design wise. Because I predominantly print work that I've designed in Corel I print directly from Corel. There is less degradation of the picture. If you have to export it do it as a jpeg. I export it at 600 dpi and yes the file can be huge but the quality is there. With my cutter the maximum border that can be cut is 8 inch by 10 inch and still remain on the wheels. The location of the 8x10 template is key when printing directly from Corel. Go up to the dropdown menu to view, scroll down to show and then printable area. Click on it and a dashed line will come up inside of the page border. place the 8 by 10 inch square within that area. Now you can place your image within that area.

 At this point you need to save your image. This was designed to allow for a 1/16 of an inch overprint so there would be no white border showing allowing for minor misplacement of the alignment. Now we need to create the cutting path to do the trimming. Because this was created as a vector file I was able to just select the outer border of the picture and do an inside contour trace.

Now comes the trick of the whole thing. We need to break the contour group apart so the blackened area becomes it's own separate entity. Select the cut path (blackened area) and the boundary box you've created And copy them. You can select both by holding the shift button when selecting the items. Open a new window and paste. Save this file out as the name of your project and cut file for easy reference later. Be sure to remove any interior color from from the object. 

Export the file out as an AI and your trimming file is set to go. You're probably saying to yourself at this point that this is alot of work when I could just trim this out with a pair of scissors but if you have alot of them to do, this will save you tonnes of time later. This whole process up to this point only takes about 2 minutes. Close out Corel as the design stage is now complete. DO NOT SAVE over your original file. Print your original file in full page format and give it a few minutes to dry. While you're letting it dry you can fire up your cutter and let the iron on press start warming up. The settings recommended by the manufacturer on the sheets is 180 degrees Celsius at 30 seconds medium pressure.

Load your sheet into the cutter and align the sheet.

Depress the blade so it extends and set it onto the left most corner of the boundary square that you drew. Slide the cutter out of the way and hold the pages position with a pin in the corner that you just located. Bring the cutter over into the home position of the page and follow the same steps for locating that corner of the box.

Set the Origin position (home) for the cutter. 

Something through experiment that I found was reduce your speed down to 50 and your pressure to 125. Bring the cutting file AI into your cutting software. I use SignGo. Some of the settings that you select in the cutting menu are going to be critical at this point for alignment.

Make sure the weed border is not enabled. If it is the alignment will be completely off left and down by the size of the border. At this point select the Start function.

Remove the sheet from the cutter and peel away the excess material. This is what it will look like showing the overprint and trim.

Set the shirt onto the press and do a 5 second press to smooth out any irregularities as well as dry out any moisture.

Locate the graphic where you want it, put the protective sheet over it and press it on. This is what the final product looked like.

When the iron on is set into the shirt properly, it will embed itself into the fabric like this.

 

Thanks again as always to Benjamin at AIP for great product and great service. Stay creative my friends.

The Men of Hope Golf Tournament

    Last Friday my Wife and I went to The 2nd annual Men of Hope Golf Tournament in Belleville Ontario. It was a deeply moving experience that I will never forget. I had the opportunity to to talk with alot of great people there but most notably were George Chuvalo, Joanne Jessie Chuvalo, Theo Fleury, Carey Fraser, Lee Ferrel, and last but definitely not least Paulie O'Byrne.
    When we got there we were welcomed with open arms and hugs all around by Lee. He and his wonderful group of volunteers arranged the event and did a miraculous job. Every minute detail was taken care of. The Trillium Woods Golf Club that hosted the event were absolutely top notch. There were sponsors everywhere shmoozing it up and doing their thing.
    The event was to help raise awareness and funding to support male sexual abuse survivors in the Quinte district of Ontario. Being that we didn't play in the tournament and only had tickets for the buffet afterward we had a chance to stroll around and enjoy everything that the tournament had to offer. We perused the tent where all of the auction items were located and I almost died when I saw a hockey stick, jersey and plaque going as a trifecta signed by my favourite hockey player of all time Daryl Sittler.
    Gradually time wound down and the golfers started to trickle in from the course. This was when George and Joanne arrived. We were told that everything was getting set for dinner to take our seats in the tent so Denise and I found a table that only had a couple of people sitting there. We sat down and introduced ourselves and one of the ladies introduced herself as Carey. I had heard that name before in this circle but I didn't quite make the connection at first until she mentioned what she does. She's one of the representatives for Theo. Holy crap. I only knew her as Carey09 from Twitter so I was a little caught off guard. Carey and I were chatting about the 1in5 guitar I had airbrushed and low and behold, George and Joanne came strolling by and asked if they could sit at the table. Ummmmmm yes. I got George a seat and Denise and I proceded to have a conversation with George that was like we had known each other for years. I was starstruck. We finished our dinners which were delicious beyond belief and there was about a half hour before the auction started.
    I had the opportunity to talk to Theo and get his book signed for my dad and one for me. He personalized each of them. He didn't have to so it was greatly appreciated. Class act all of the way. We chatted a few times that night.One of the discussions I will keep between Theo and I for now but my heart swelled and every emotion I could have felt all came to the surface all at once. It was powerful, it was scary, but it was relieving. I'm not alone nor will I ever be.
    We had to look at heading out after the auction was near it's end because we had to go to my cousins place to pick up our 6 year old and it was a 2 hour drive so I quickly asked George for a photo opportunity and Joanne offered to take the picture which was so nice. George gave me an autographed and personalized photo from one of his bouts that I will be framing. I just about hugged him right there on the spot. We got a quick snapshot with Theo which Carey took for us and we were off. We saw Lee and Paulie on our way out the door and thanked Lee for a great time. A week later and every little detail is as vivd in my memory as if it happened moments ago. I will cherish it my heart always. Farewell my friends, stay creative

It's been a while since my last post. Things have been picking up extremely well for us but it's no excuse for the lack of Blogs. Ever since we did the Colliers Cool Cats t-shirts for the tournament, t-shirts have been in high demand from us. We found the need to upgrade the equipment and bought a 4 in 1 multi press to make things go smoother and faster. I have no doubt that this piece of equipment added to our arsenal will undoubtedly pay for itself in no time. We picked it up yesterday from All Image Printing and had it running first thing this morning filling the first of many shirt runs that it is going to see. Over the next few weeks, I'm going to put together tutorials of everything from designing to transfering onto different materials such as hats, shirts, etc. to help you make the most of your time, and materials. Thanks again to Benjamin at AIP and all of his help. Stay creative my friends.

Collier's Cool Cats

Brian Collier Memorial Ball Tournament T-shirts

I was recently contacted via Facebook by a team that will be playing in a memorial baseball tournament for the late Brian Collier, a soldier in the Canadian Military who lost his life in action overseas. They have begun holding an annual softball tournament in his memory and the proceeds go towards scholarships for the local High Schools to Bradford Ontario and remaining proceeds to helping kids enjoy the experience of playing baseball for the local teams. Having lived in Bradford for about 5 1/2 years this one hit close to home. I quickly agreed to the contract and set the wheels in motion. I was sent a preliminary design that I quickly worked with and got all of the pertinent information to create the best possible graphic that I could muster. 

It was decided quickly that I would design for an 8 1/2 X 11 transfer so this was a mitigating part of the design process. I came up with a design over the next day and sent it off for approval. They loved it.

The team was supplying the shirts so it was now a waiting game from the supplier before I could get started. The shirts took about a week and a half to come so I utilized the time to get all of the graphics printed and trimmed. My supplier Benjamin at Aprimo Group at All image Printing came through for me as usual with flying colours. He had everything ready to go for the order and all I had to do was pick it up. Excellent customer service as always which is the way he works. The shirts came in and looked great in a desert camo. 

The shirts need to be pre-pressed to extract any excess dampness and to smooth the shirt for the transfer.

Nice and smooth and dry. Time to measure across the width to find centre. After letting the shirt cool for a minute or so, it was time to peel the transfer from the backing paper and line it up.

The graphic placement worked out that the base of the Memorial Tournament lettering lined up to the armpit seams for the Large X-Large 2XL and 3XL shirts so lining it up made things go even more smoothly. Next step is placing the ironing sheet over the graphic. Parchment paper can be used in a pinch for smaller graphics but the ironing sheets work best for larger graphics. I used parchment for these.

Th iron was set to the cotton setting and the timer set to a minute and a half. The best method is medium to hard pressure to get the transfer to set into the material.

Starting with getting the transfer stuck down in place from the centre outwards, you then get to the outer edge and any tips that extend past the graphic. Those edges require a bit more attention because they are a weak point on the iron-on. 

After the minute and a half is up, the next step is taking a cloth and rubbing the parchment down. This serves two purposes. It sets the graphic in a bit more but it also draws heat out of the parchment for removal. An extremely hot parchment can pull up the iron-on.

Peel the parchment back slowly watching for peel up.

After the parchment is completely off do a quick scan of the edges.

Next step, adding the company logo on the sleeve using the above steps. Difference being because of the size, 15 seconds of heat sufficed.

This is the final photo of how the shirts came out.

The shirts have been delivered and the team is extremely happy with them. Good luck at the tournament Collier's Cool Cats. For more information on the tournament, please follow this link

Sapper Brian Collier Memorial Ball Tournament

Stay creative my friends.

Advertising your sign business

Today I was travelling out to Norwood Ontario with my good friend Jamie from Oxenham Design and met with a lovely couple that sell tools and accessories. Dave and Mary sat with us discussing many different projects and experiences from over the years. Dave and Jamie were in a very deep and intricate discussion over CNC work and programming while Mary and I discussed some of the signs they have created. I asked if they put their business logo on any of the signs that they produce as they do very good work. I was surprised to hear that they don't. When I inquired as to why not, she said that it was something that they really hadn't thought of doing but should. I agree that it is something that we all as sign businesses should do. When I first started my business I felt awkward about putting my logo on the signs I produce. I now realize that it is a necessity to get yourself known. Anyone that likes your signs only needs to look briefly to see who manufactured it and can move on throughout their busy schedule. Yes they could go into the business or go up and knock on the door of the house that you've done an elaborate name plate for but it can be awkward not to mention that the business may be on off hours. It's your work, be proud, advertise yourself through your hard work.

Stay creative my friends

Customer satisfaction 101

Contracts for sign jobs are a necessity of the business. They give a hard copy of what is expected of you as a service provider but also protect you from unnecessary conflict. Any time a customer contacts me for a sign job or a vinyl graphic, I document the conversation as to what they want and need. It makes things go alot smoother in the long run and avoids disappointment. Over time I've learned to ask the right questions to get the full spectrum of what the customer wants so I can get started on the job without having to call them back other than to give them progress reports. 

Questions:

• Which direction does the sign face - This is actually a very important question because it may change the materials that you recommend based on sun exposure. 
• Distance from road and foot traffic as well as the location of the sign height  - This will determine the amount of contrast the letters need on the background and determine the correct height of the graphics to be legible.
• Is the sign being backlit - Determining the substrate being used to create the sign as well as overall design.
• Dimensions of the sign - This is the most basic of questions because you need to find out your overall square footage of the sign to calculate material costs.
• Is the customer installing the sign - If yes problem solved. If no then arrangements will need to be made to either install the sign yourself or have a sign installation company do it for you.
• What is the sign being put on - Is it going onto a light box, a post, over top of another sign? If there is no sign present and it is a brand new install, you will need to have the customer arrange to have the utility companies come out and mark where the utilities may be running under ground. The last thing you need is to be driving a spike through a gas line or electrical connection.
• Life of the sign - What is the expected life of the sign the customer requires. This is important as it can save you frustration and grief in the long term. If a customer wants a wood carved sign to last them 25 years, maintenance free. I try to steer them away from wood and suggest High Density Urethane as a viable alternative. Wood will need to be touched up and repaired every 5 years or so to fix blemishes, pealing, cracking, and warping. If a customer wants a vinyl sign then it is merely suggesting higher grade vinyls that will survive longer. Know your product specifications.

There are so many questions that need to be answered to make your customers happy and content but if you want referral work then you need to make them happy. People in general will have lengthy conversations about how unhappy they are with poor service and product but rarely give any thought to saying in a conversation how happy they are with what you have provided for them because it is what is expected from you as a service provider.

Stay creative my friends

Letter Sizing

Letter sizing is a key component to the quality of any well designed sign. There are standard rules of thumb such as 1 inch for every 10 feet. That rule of thumb only works when lighting conditions are nominal, standard fonts such as Helvetica or Arial are used, and the white space around the letters is large enough to allow for proper contrast. If the sign is to be read at a speed of 50 km/h or 100 km/h makes a large difference as well. Billboard type signs require a driver to take their eyes off of the road therefore decreasing reaction time. I know for me personally, if I have to strain to read a sign, I ignore it. 

    

MAXIMUM READABLE DISTANCE	READABLE  DISTANCE  FOR MAXIMUM IMPACT	LETTER HEIGHT
100'	30'	3"
150'	40'	4"
200'	60'	6"
350'	80'	8"
400'	90'	9"
450'	100'	10"
525'	120'	12"
630'	150'	15"
750'	180'	18"
1000'	240'	24"
1250'	300'	30"
1500'	360'	36"
1750'	420'	42"
2000'	480'	48"
2250'	540'	54"
2500'	600'	60"

Other factors that come into play are the colour contrasts that make a sign work.

The bottom 4 colour contrasts on the chart have a tendency to colour bleed together and are hard on the eyes to distinguish so a bordering contrast colour such as white or yellow around the letters is commonly used.

Well, I hope this has been useful to you and you now have a quick reference guide to help in designing a sign which allows for maximum impact. Stay creative my friends.

Sign Design Colour Choices

One of the things to take into consideration when you're designing a vinyl sign is colour choices. Although vinyl comes in an almost limitless array of colours, that exact match may not always be attainable. To solve this problem, one of the methods I use is I took my colour samples provided by my vinyl supplier and scanned them into my computer both flats and glosses and saved them into a custom colour pallet. Using these as your fill colours can make a world of difference when creating your design because you will have a relatively accurate representation for your customer. Verify with your supplier as well that they have these colours in stock as well. The last thing you want is to be on a very limited timeline to only find out that although the sample is available, it is a special order item or can only be purchased in a full roll not a partial. Having all of this info sitting on the table will also save you alot of aggravation as well as an upset customer because of an unknown factor that could have been avoided. If you do have to special order some vinyl, verify the time frame from your supplier. If they say 4 to 5 business days for delivery, allow for 5 to 10. Things happen and again, your customer will be alot happier to hear from you early stating that their sign is complete early than getting a call saying there has been a delay.

As always, stay creative my friends.

Sign Shapes

I've had a lot of people ask me about how I come up with some of the elaborate sign shapes and borders that we design. To be honest, my favourite designs kind of created themselves. I complete the overall layout of the sign and create a basic contour around it. This is especially useful in designing older heritage style signs. Many of the small towns where I live are very strict when it comes to the signs that are allowed and the protocols that designers must adhere to. Using this method I've never had a design rejection from the various boards I've submitted to.

This is my most recent design.

All sign makers and designers should have an array of basic templates in their arsenal as well, but I rarely use them any more. For the most part I find they restrict the creative process and limit my designs. Stay creative my friends.

Selling yourself short?

I came across this picture the other day and it got me to thinking. How many of us who have our own businesses in a creative field have fallen into the trap of giving away free work to get ourselves noticed?

I know that I personally did it on a regular basis when I started out. I was under the impression that if I made signs at an extremely low price to undercut everyone else, I would gain notoriety and exposure. The exposure is good but at what price. I was suddenly seen as less than professional because I didn't value my work or my abilities. Unfortunately it took a long time to get myself out of that public perception. Don't get me wrong, I still do charity work on a regular basis. That is a totally different ball of wax. I charge what my work is worth now. I provide a level of quality and customer service that is second to none so my customers are more than willing to pay my prices. I gain exposure because of the quality of my work and my love of what I do. So my friends, in closing : If you feel your work is worth less than everyone else' then by all means charge less. If you're afraid that you won't make sales because your price may be too high, by all means lower your rates. But please, don't undervalue yourself. The moment you do, you set yourself up for failure. Hope this post inspires you and as always, stay creative my friends.

Different methods and techniques

This decal has been in discussion with my customer since October. He was looking to get it for his stepfather as a present. He needed 30 of them produced. I gave him my pricing back then and we stayed communicating about it with some minor changes here and there, Last week he finally gave me the go ahead to pull the trigger on it and do them up for him. I set to it and  got all 30 cut on the vinyl cutter. One of the things I've learned when cutting very small letters is to pull the centres out of the letters before weeding the exteriors. The letters will move around on the backer a lot less that way.

 This is a quick glance at what vinyl looks like when it has been cut before weeding the excess waste material.

These letters were less than a third of an inch high. I started removing the excess from the bottom as it was easier this time than going from side to side.

I pull the excess up to about this point on each line and make sure that all of the letters are not coming up with it. Carefully pushing any portions of letters back down onto the backer.

The dot for the i and the apostrophe can be the bane of many a sign shops existence. They have a tendency to  come off on the cutter or lift up with the weeding.

On to the printed and contour cut portion. I put the transfer tape down onto the exhaust system sticker, and squeegee'd it smooth.

And removed it from the backer.

Carefully hovering the exhaust sticker over top of the lettering portion of the graphic, I got it lined up. I removed as much of the static as possible so the vinyl graphic wouldn't inadvertently lift up onto the transfer tape.

When I was happy with the location, I lowered it down into place.

Pressing everything into place with the squeegee to insure the entire graphic lifts smoothly in one try.

Peeling up the back corner to remove the weed border. Because I didn't use registration marks, this was the easiest way to make sure I stayed within the boundary.

Border gone and this is what my customer will receive.

I made up an accompanying video to show how to install this type of decal to achieve the best possible results.

Thank you my friends and always stay creative.

Don't quit before the miracle

It's not very often in life when you get the opportunity to meet a celebrity or one of your heroes growing up. On Thursday night of last week I had the pleasure and privilege of meeting Theo Fleury. He's been doing speaking engagements titled "Don't quit before the miracle" and goes into great detail about the fight he waged against drug and alcohol addiction. I messaged Theo on Wednesday when I noticed that he would be down in Toronto at Forest Hill Collegiate doing one of these engagements and thought it would be the perfect time to get him to autograph the guitar I airbrushed for the charity I'm 1in5. He said he would love to do it and would meet with me afterward to sign it. I drove down to the city guitar in hand hoping that I wouldn't be let down not having met Theo personally. I sat through Theo's very moving tale of courage and hope and during the questionaire saw his brother Ted.. I approached Ted and mentioned to him that I was supposed to meet up with Theo after and explained that it had all been arranged previously. The moment of truth. To my astonishment Ted had heard of me and said to follow him up to the stage while Theo was signing autographs. I saw the lineup for signatures and figured oh great, this isn't going to happen. Ted looked at me and said, follow me. He took me right up onto the stage with Theo. I was in awe. Ted leaned over too Theo, tapped him on the shoulder and said that I was there and Theo reached over and shook my hand and said it was a pleasure to meet me. He looked at the guitar and signed it right then and there. I was dumbfounded. I asked if I could get a picture with him and he said when he was done to go backstage with him for the photo. Again, dumbfounded and in awe. I waited for the photo opportunity and the moment came. I had my Mom with me as she is my biggest supporter, and we both went backstage. Theo signed a hockey card for her and I handed off mom the camera and she snapped a couple shots. I took the opportunity to thank Theo so much for everything and with a firm handshake it was done. I saw Ted and thanked him as well. What an awesome individual.

Thank you Theo.