Posted by dino on March 24, 2003
D. BernhardtDo any of you guys do a lot of paper window signs ?
Is there still a market for them ? What is the going rate ? Does 1.50 a square ft. sound about right ?
I am interested in starting a hand lettered paper
sign and banner business, any thought would be helpfull.
Thanks
Kent SmithYes...did piles of paper and sho-cards for about 15 years. we also had a few grocery stores but those were 1-ofs and there were arround 3 or 4 different spots. The work was boring although great training and we got about $5 or$10 each for 3x4 and 4x4s. that was early to mid-70s. When i went off on my own was doing 3x4s (white sale...50%off evrything etc etc)...for arround $50. There is a shop in town here who are doing that sort of work again but the quality is quite poor. Am sure there must be some sort of market for these but might not be that lucrative.. an invoice and collecting etc has to go with everyone of these. No one seems to have just 75 dollars ready just then so youll probably need to send statements and then phone calls...ah yes...now I remember why i gave them up!
Mike JacksonBook price for a 3x5 is 157.50 now and that may help determine if it is feasable. Just because it is paper does not mean it takes less time to letter, even in a casual style. I haven't done many in the last 10 or so years although it used to be full time for two days a week. Really paid the bills then but now is different with affordable wide format printing.
Hi Kent,
I think there are variables on the book price which have to be considered here.
First, if you had to meet with a customer, design a sign, then hand letter it, the price might be fairly high. However, if you had a client that ordered basically the same grouping of paper signs over and over, changing only some small copy or price, I can see how the pricing can be much, much less and still make money. I watched a paper poster shop work one day, and they were FAST! They had about 8 stations set up with a template page under the current sheet. With their big brushes, one guy could whip down all eight panels in no time and another guy came in behind him with the next color. They had wire streched across the back of the shop to hang up row after row of posters with spring clips--and the operation continued. Since this shop specialized in mainly paper posters, they had all brushes ready and paints thinned to the exact viscosity for doing what they needed to do. It looked fun, but I think it would get old fast.
Raymond says he made about $1 per minute....$60 per hour way back then? He was only charging $6 each for the paper posters. So, the answer to his question probably has a lot of variables to consider...mostly whether you can find two or three consistent buyers to allow him to specialize in them.
The traditional wisdom states that it takes as long to paint a sign on paper as it does on a banner, mdo, or a truck. I can buy that so some extent, but I do know that customers wanting that kind of paper poster work are not expecting every corner to be exactly square nor every letter to be perfectly formed. Now, with computer making some signs "perfectly ugly", the human imperfections start having some value again. If Raymond could paint a 3'x4' sign in 4 to 6 minues for $6, you know the quality would be less than if he had hand lettered in enamels on a piece of primed and paintd MDO.
Darla just loves to paint paper posters. She makes fairly good money on some and does a lot for our kids for their sporting events and for the church special events. As I walk by, I ask her if she is getting paid on this group, and the answer "yes" or "no", either way, wouldn't surprise me. I ended up buying her a nice supply of Rich Art poster colors which make the process better and quicker. She can really whip out the signs using a 2" foam brush!
Mike Jackson
Kent Smith
I agree, when I used to do them in qunatity I used 3 or 4 basic formats and whipped them out. I don't see much of that quantity now, at least not around here. Dad had a contract with the original King Soopers (3 stores) and I did their banners on Tues and Thurs. 3x5, 3 to 6 words, 10 per store. Lettered with Japan signcraft red thinned with Flourence Japan varnish and turpentine. That was a really thin mix which worked really fast and did not wrinkle the paper. It dried practically before you could take the paper off the bench. The color was strong enough that you could see thru so that you could letter multiple copies alike, one on top of the other. My point on the pricing is that for the most part, I letter just one at a time anymore and have to charge like any other sign. Often in that circumstance, I am also copeting with the large format prints so the quality of lettering has to be better than the more casual style we used to use for qauntity paper signs. I think it woul have to be a pretty special situation to have enough volume in today's market.
Raymond Chapman
There are some chains that still use hand lettered paper window signs but not many. Thirty years ago I did paper window signs for a local chain of grocery stores. It was a great learning exercise as it taught me how to hand letter big and splasy and FAST. There was not much creativity in the situation, but the money was relatively good since I did them in my garage/studio at home in the evenings. A job like this gets old really quickly because you always have a stack of paper waiting for you.
What you charge would depend on your local market area and how fast you are. The paper signs that I did were 3' x 4' and the paper was supplied by the grocery chain. I did five sets of 10 (total fifty signs) and charged $6 each - total $300. Remember, this was 1973-1975, which was good money because I did them in two evenings - about four hours total, which came out to over a dollar a minute (including the delivery to one central store). My only overhead was black show card color.
The problem was that I came to dread doing them and finally gave it up. They got someone with a big Magic Marker to take my place.
With so many printing processes being handled by the central office of large chains, the outlook may not be good....but you never know 'til you try.
Good luck.
Bob
I think you can pretty much answer that yourself.
Take a look around your town, what type of signage do you see the most?, Vinyl, carved, sandblasted, etc.
I think that will be your best gauge. Bob
Denver Chapter of the Letterheads