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Video has been shown before was put on the ground. Security camera video from buildings by the scene clearly show Floyd NOT physically resisting arrest, with his hands cuffed behind him. One angle shows police sitting him down on the sidewalk against a building. Big question: if the guy was...

I haven't seen a lot of the hardcore "back the blue" types rushing to defense of these police officers like they have in past cases. A few are trying. One of the spin attempts is shifting blame for Floyd's death to the people who were videotaping the incident, "why didn't they try to stop the...

Our shop does. We keep everything up to date with certifications, logs and all that stuff. We're fully prepared for any surprise visits from DOT, OSHA and EPA. It's foolish not to do so. Fines can be hella expensive. Now we don't act like we're the police for other sign companies in our region...

The thing I find truly flabbergasting is the cop continued to grind his knee into the guy's neck for several minutes while being videotaped by the bystanders yelling for him to stop. IMHO it's an act of cold blooded murder. The suspect was defenseless, belly-down with his hands cuffed behind his...

I think Calibri has a little too much style to it to act as a replacement for Arial. It's not a very neutral looking typeface. Helvetica and various Helveti-clones (Swiss 721, Nimbus Sans, Triumvirate, etc) are easy choices. Akzidenz Grotesk has more of the Arial feel, but without looking nearly...

Some of us have offered suggestions, but any list of "recommended fonts" is really pretty worthless without having any context relating to a specific sign project. It would be just as easy to check something like the "Best Sellers" page at the MyFonts web site as a gauge of what's popular. The...

What does that even mean? Standard TTF, T1 and OTF font files are garbage? A good quality commercial typeface, such as the Gotham family I mentioned previously, is going to have a lot of kerning pairs, proper hinting, etc to make the OTF files "glitch free" anyway. I don't have SignLab or any...

Unless the customer has an existing logo and branding scheme it's usually best to not let them dictate what fonts are going to be used in a sign project. They don't have the expertise. Very often font requests from clients can be pretty stupid -like wanting a thin, connected wedding script for a...

It's not surprising to hear anyone having issues importing Illustrator-generated artwork into Flexi. Certain effects, like art brush or pattern brush effects applied to line strokes, have to be expanded before exporting to PDF or EPS. Flexi won't read certain object fill effects properly. That...

In Adobe Illustrator I almost always use the Path Offset tool to generate outline effects around source objects. It avoids the double inline/outline paths when expanding line strokes.

Yeah, we don't leave it up to customers at all to get installation permits. We work the permit costs into the sign quote. But we handle all the red tape leg work ourselves. I can't imagine any customer even wanting to deal directly with getting a proposed sign approved by the local city...

The permitting process is supposed to allow the city to verify a proposed sign complies with the sign code before it is installed. It's a lot easier to remedy code conflicts before a sign is built and installed rather than afterward. Enforcement after the fact always creates far more heartburn...

Sign permitting is a very frustrating topic. Our company does business in a lot of areas across Oklahoma, Texas and some points even farther away. We check sign codes and permitting requirements when the project is in the initial design, planning and bidding stage. Selling and building a sign...

You're saving all the files you export for RIP purposes? If so it seems like a waste of disc space to me. I certainly keep the original master file and any related original assets for a certain project. But files exported just to RIP or send to a routing table usually get trashed unless there is...

I've been watching the notebook market closely for the past couple of years. My current notebook is getting pretty old, old enough that a number of components can't be replaced anymore (such as the battery). So many models, including Apple's Mac Book Pro line, have had thermal issues, making...

Design the artwork at 50% of full size. Really it doesn't matter what scale you use as long as it's easy to enlarge back to full size in the RIP before printing. If you like using line strokes in artwork (rather than actual outlined paths) make sure any of those strokes are set to scale with the...

Our company still produces neon in-house. But our neon guy is getting up there in the years and isn't far from retirement. It's really depressing how little demand there is for neon in most places anymore. There are some "oasis" spots with lots of new neon signs, like The District next to...

"CAS" software developers like SAi, Gerber and others have to realize their industry-specific software does not exist in a vacuum. General purpose vector drawing programs have slowly been eating into their territory for a long time. It's feasible to do large scale design, like full size sign...

George H.W. Bush once famously said, "read my lips, no new taxes!" He was misunderstood. He clearly said, "read my lips, know new taxes!" Most schools, both public and private don't base teacher pay on student performance, particularly test scores. You can have an outstanding quality teacher...

While no one is really attacking anyone, I will take the opportunity to attack one idea being floated in this thread: that the broad misuse of certain words in our culture is a failing of English teachers. Sorry, but I think that's a bunch of bull$#1+. The student has to apply himself in class...