Prepared for Sandy

A reminder to everyone in Columbus, Ohio and other areas as Hurricane Sandy blows through, to take inside feather flags, banners, yard signs and possibly even outside window vinyl. While many of our signs are weather proof they are not natural-disaster-proof.

Should the power lines go down over the week, Next Day Signs should still be up and running on our back-up generator. The generators are capable of keeping a few of our computers, sign equipment, a couple lights and the phones working. From the outside it may not look as bright, but you can always double-check if we are open by calling in.

Please stay safe in this weather!

Cheryl’s Thoughts on SGIA

Author:  Cheryl –

Conferences are a mixed bag – at their best they offer great ideas for new development, an opportunity to network, and the chance to see/touch/feel products that interest you.  The other side is hours of standing, sometimes pushy sales people, and then the pressure of decisions to purchase – go small, go big, or not at all.

This last week I attended the SGIA conference, one of the largest sign conferences in the world.  We saw printers that could create banners to cover the side of a building, machinery that would need a new building to house it.  But we also saw many products and machinery suited for smaller businesses like ours that will help us to be more productive and increase the offerings to our clients that we can produce right in house.

Now it’s time for the follow-up – review the literature, check the samples, and makes some decisions about what steps forward to take our business.  Are you thinking about taking some steps forward this year with your business?  Let us help you market your new ideas or products with sign solutions.  Stop by with your ideas, notepad scratches or full designs and we’ll work with you to take it to great results in signs, banners, decals, displays, flags, or printing that will take your business to the next level.

Work and Games

Cheryl will be out of the office for half of the week, she’ll be attending the SGIA Expo. A specialty printing and imaging technology conference,  the largest of its kind in America, and it just happens to be in Las Vegas, Nevada. She assures me that she is taking the trip merely for the opportunity to see what new products we could work with, possible new machine investments for the business. Yet when she says all this with a smile, it doesn’t make it very convincing.

Card games and shows aside, I think that it is an important visit to make, and it will be our first time having someone attend such a populated event. It is always a good idea to continue to educate yourself on your field of business. There’s always a chance for new changes, new styles or improvements. But I’m making a note here to convince her before next year that she’s too valuable to send, and that I should go instead.

Halloween Parties

Halloween is only a couple weeks away and coming fast. Many of my friends are pondering how they wish to decorate their home for either parties or trick-or treaters. There are many themes to go for; festival, creepy, scary, historical, and the list goes on. It’s easy enough to pick up decoration items at the local costume store or the seasonal Halloween stores that pop up across town. And if you want something unique and cheap , don’t forget we’ve still got our ‘dollar menu’.

The dollar menu is a selection of smaller substrate signs (normally less than 2’x2′) available for $1. Then you can either buy your own  personal lettering for the sign, or buy just the sign to decorate yourself. It can be uniquely phrased then for your party theme, or it can declare the rules if costumes or sacrifices(BYOB) are required.

Have fun! Be safe! and beware of monsters!

Weddings and Birthdays

This weekend sure was busy, Cheryl drove out of town to celebrate her step-father’s 94th birthday, while I attended my friend’s wedding as a member of the bridal party. Each of us brought a sign gift to our respective parties. Cheryl brought a printed banner with over 25 pictures on it from across her step-father’s lifetime. The family enjoyed looking over the pictures, remembering moments in life from years past. 

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For my friend I gave her a 2′ x 2′ congratulatory sign for her wedding to be placed up at the location of the reception. I did not think much of it beyond being a nice touch and a gift. It turned out to be quite useful as the reception area that was booked was hosting two weddings at the same time. The sign, placed on a easel by the door, was just large enough to help attendants from the other wedding to stop from getting lost and stumbling into the wrong area. Signs can always be helpful and have more than one purpose.

Why Loco for Local?

The internet has made a big impact on the economy, it takes competition from a local level to a worldwide level. Shops are set up to make one particular product as fast and as cheap as possible, so why shop locally? Well there are many reasons why it’s more efficient to just pay the extra bucks to buy something locally.

1. Product Security. The biggest difference between the viral versus physical stores is the ability to touch and see the product or samples before a big purchase. To be aware of exactly what you are getting rather than a ‘guesstimate’.

2. Face to Face Service. Let’s say you get your product and there’s a mistake, it can happen anywhere in the world, maybe a misspelling, a blotch, the wrong material. If you buy locally you are able to directly express to a person your concerns and receive within moments a response. While e-mails to web-sellers may get either no response or the tag-line of ‘buyer beware’.

3. Last Minute Calls. This doesn’t always work, but sometimes you need something made and you need it in your hands as soon as possible. If you have a connection with a local vendor, they may be able to accommodate you or provide a reasonable alternative that you didn’t consider.

4. Saving Time. When you try and buy something on the web, you spend at least an hour online. AT LEAST. Using a search engine to look for what you want, trying to judge whether or not you think the seller is legit, if the product is what you want, entering in your personal information (billing and shipping location, then credit card information), sometimes you need to make an account just to make your purchase. And this isn’t including how long it takes if you get distracted. (No one gets distracted on the internet right?) When you buy locally, you may drive up to 15mins to the location, place your order in 5 mins, (if it even takes that long) and then drive back, but most likely you’ll use the drive time to stop and do other errands. A total of 35mins. (And if you’re able to call in your order then it’s only 5mins!)

5. Helping your Economy. When you buy locally you help your local economy. That business has the chance to grow, hire more employees that live in the area, perhaps even someone you know. Then those employees take the money they earn and if they spend it locally it creates a revolving system.

Removing old Vehicle Lettering

One of the reasons people are timid about getting vehicle lettering is of course the idea that it is never coming off again. Or that during the process of the removal the automobile will never look as good as it did before the lettering has been put on in the first place. We’ve all seen the cars on the streets with faded lettering or sticky residue remaining from where there had been a bumper sticker. You might have even seen it on my car if you were looking on the passenger side of it.

Well, I’m here to tell you that I’m just personally lazy when it comes to taking off the lettering on my car. I work in a sign shop 5 days a week, so for me I’ve just been putting off making my car as nice and shiny as it could be, but it is possible. The lettering that we put on your vehicle is called ‘permanent’ because for all standard purposes it is. However it is not permanent in the sense like a tattoo, and is in no way indestructible.

To remove the lettering all you need is the fine point of a blade, you’ll slowly lift up the edge of the lettering and then pull it off with your fingers. Depending on how old and brittle the lettering is it might break off in your hand. This process can take a long time depending on how much lettering you have on your vehicle, make sure to set aside hours to work on it before you begin, or plan that’ll you’ll remove only so much per day.

Once the lettering is removed you will have adhesive residue still remaining. At the shop we like to use a special chemical called Rapid Remover bought from RapidTac.com to remove the adhesive. Which I would suggest for any large scale projects, or multiple vehicles as it is very effective. If you’re looking to only work on your own vehicle or something more small scale then Goo Gone is also good at removing adhesive residue, which can be found in many local stores. Spray the chemical onto your vehicle, give it time to sink in, then with a hard plastic edge you can scrape the adhesive away. For a visual guide you can watch this video Rapid Remover placed up http://vimeo.com/46783839.

Back to Work Charge

There’s nothing quite like going back to work after a three-day weekend. It’s just enough time to get you to finish all those chores at the house and spend a day relaxing or having fun, and then realizing you really just don’t want to have to set your alarm the night before. Once that mood sets in then you begin to contemplate just how much you don’t want to go to work, and that’s no way to start the week when you know you’ll have a lot to do on your first day back. I know that we got a lot of work here at Next Day Signs for the first day back. (Poor Aaron, he comes in tomorrow after being out for a week, he certainly has a challenge ahead of him.)

However, if you want to keep your spirits up so you don’t feel drained at work, I have two suggestions. Positivity and movement. The first one is easy enough to state, but not so easy to implement. You’ve got to chase away those whining thoughts in your head of your dreading return, and find something that can help give you a little spark in the day. For me, it’s being able to listen to Pandora while I work, but something small can also do the trick. For example, changing your desktop image on your computer, I like to change mine with the landscape scenery images that are provided in my ‘Sample Pictures’ folder. Having a new image on my desktop draws my attention once in a while to appreciate it.

The second tip is movement, being stagnate is one of the fastest ways to lose your energy in the day. If you work at a desk sometimes you have to be a little creative about it, but it is possible. You can start with cleaning your desk and tidying it up if it isn’t already. If that’s already done then you could put something under your desk to occupy your feet with, such as a tennis ball or baseball you can roll back and forth. There are even places where you can buy little rowing pedals to have under your desk.

Hopefully these suggestions can help you get back into the swing of work! If you have your own tips, leave them behind in a comment.

What the weather brings

I would first like to start by saying congratulations to my colleague Aaron and his family, for the new addition to their family, a baby boy. Aaron will most likely be out for the week to help take care of the new little one. I’ll be sorting through his e-mail while he’s gone and will answer any questions sent in.

Secondly, Next Day Signs would like to advise any sign owners to keep an eye out for when the tail end storms of Hurricane Isaac sweep over Central Ohio. It’s possible that all we may get is some rain and a small bit of wind, however there have been many times when signs have been damaged by the strong winds brought in after a hurricane passing. Feather flags are the most susceptible to the gusts of wind and may want to be kept inside all day. Yard signs and banners may only need to be taken down for the worse hours and then put up again later in the day.

While our signs are weather proof, in the sense that they are not damaged by rain, cold or snow, we unfortunately cannot guarantee their safety during natural disasters. So please refrain from taking your signs into a volcano.

Many Hats Indeed

Author: Amanda

There are two things that I really love about working at Next Day Signs LLC. The first is that each day is different, rarely do we come across two days in the week that we’re working on the same sign orders (unless it is a rather large project.) The second is that the owner, Cheryl, is not the kind of person to just sit behind her desk and leave production work to everyone else.

Today was an adventure, Aaron had to take half the day off and our part time help wasn’t scheduled for the day, leaving just Cheryl and I in the store. Normally on a Monday this isn’t much of an issue, but we’ve been keeping busy and still had many jobs in production to do. One of the jobs consisted of 15 routed red 3mm PVC signs. Usually we leave these jobs to Aaron who has carpentry skills, but since he would be out Cheryl caught him in time to teach her in five minutes or less how to use the hand-held router.

Occasionally I would peek over from my work to see how my boss was managing. She was covered in red flecks of PVC, as was the counter and the floor, it was an image akin to an explosion of Valentine’s day confetti. However, she was not hindered by the sign debris, and swiftly completed the 15 signs needed. “Chief, Cook and Bottle Washer,” she proclaimed as she finished dusting off the specks, being an owner of not only a store but many ‘hats’.