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The path ahead for "CAS" applications like Flexi looks pretty simple. Such applications will end up being nothing more than a utility to drive a vinyl cutter/plotter. The design features are pointless for being so limited and wrapped in a very dated user interface. RIP applications already work...

Flexi is good for sending artwork to a vinyl cutter/plotter or doing certain things to prep files to send over to EnRoute. As a design tool, Flexi is badly dated -especially with how it handles fonts. It doesn't provide much support for advanced OpenType features, much less support newer formats...

That's an image to reinforce the stereotype of sign painters liking their booze.

The next time I buy a monitor for a desktop PC I'm going to get one with a high refresh rate, like 120Hz or better. I have a new Alienware notebook with a 17" UHD 120Hz panel; the high refresh rate is really nice for applications like Adobe Illustrator. Animated zoom and hand-panning across the...

I have no problem printing very fine or tiny copy with our two HP latex printers. The resolution of those printers is far sharper than the eco-solvent printer we previously used. One of our clients is a marijuana growing company that orders hundreds of pre-cut product labels at a time. Some of...

It still required formal training and skills to use a printing press. Today we have people hopping onto computers with no idea what they're doing so they can make up their own chapters of the bible. One symptom of how bad it is: over in Adobe's Illustrator users forum a couple days ago some...

Hacks, "bottom feeders," amateurs, etc have come and gone from the sign industry for decades. Really, once the computers arrived so did people with little if any ability to draw and paint by hand. It's the whole syndrome of people thinking the computers are creating the artwork, not the person...

Specifically, which computers that are just one year old cannot install Windows 11? That sounds like a serious exaggeration. If such a thing is happening the computers must be bare bones, entry level models or ones with some kind of minimal configuration. Regarding the appeal of Windows 11, how...

I'm seeing the reverse of that in some categories, such as desktop and notebook computers. Back in the 1980's and 1990's personal computers had pretty limited useful life spans. I used three different desktop PCs at my workplace in the 1990's. 20-30 years ago each new generation of CPUs was a...

Our shop has a pair of HP Latex printers. We added the second printer a couple or so years after getting the first one. They're certainly not perfect, but they were a big step up from the "eco-solvent" Roland VersaCAMM printer we used previously. Our shop also has a flatbed printer, purchased...

There are complete copies in there. The entire pattern is held in a clipping mask. When you release/flatten it the hidden parts will be visible. I think Adobe uses this approach to allow users to quickly add things like brick wall patterns.

Within Adobe Illustrator, the easiest method is using the Repeat function under the Object menu. Choose "Grid" out of the three options. Spacing between the objects can be controlled numerically in the "Options" settings. There are options for how the objects get repeated, such as a grid or...

Cool beans. WTR Roycroft turns out to be available to sync via Adobe Fonts.

I'm intending to re-create the artwork in the attached image, but I need some help identifying the two fonts used to make the original artwork. I'm pretty sure the original creator did the work in Photoshop. Then someone else attempted to auto-trace it, yielding really crude results. Then they...

Having to work with client-provided art files is a fact of life for the vast majority of sign companies. Only in a perfect world can a sign company manage to create 100% of the artwork in signs they produce.

I suppose the process can vary from one RIP/Cut application to another. Generally the approach using a spot color named "CutContour" appears to be the most common. In my own experiences I've never seen a client successfully set up such a thing in any artwork they provide. We usually have to...

Windows 11 was released on October 5. Microsoft is pushing the new OS out to existing PCs new enough to qualify running it.

Are Postscript Type 1 fonts compatible with Windows 11? They still work in Windows 10. Adobe will phase out support of Type 1 fonts in its applications over the next year or so. That may prod other developers to pull support for Type 1 fonts as well. That's pretty odd. Just a couple weeks ago...

Yeah, the "hacks" can't even bother looking up a video on YouTube. Even that is too difficult for them. The situation is exasperating. The laziness really annoys "old timers" like me, who first learned graphic design the analog way back in the 1980's and experienced the digital transition from...

So many people out there trying to do graphic design work can't even grasp the difference between pixels and vectors. It's always fun to get a company logo from a "designer" in the form of a JPEG file and an accompanying Illustrator AI or PDF file containing the same dopey JPEG. It's not...