September 2000


Sign of the Month for September 2000
goes to Bob Darnell
London, Ontario, Canada
.

The Artist's Details..
Well, thank you so much, Mark.  I'm very honoured.
Here's some info about this sign:
This was a little project I made up for myself to go in my den.  I work for
a large electrical sign company creating designs and sketches on the
computer all day long, and I hardly ever get the chance to break out my
lettering brushes.  So every once in a while I try to create a really nice
hand lettered sign.  I try to convince myself that I haven't lost my skills.
The truth is, I could never hand letter very well to begin with, so I don't
know what I'm trying to prove.  My only consistent use of hand lettering was
for a couple of years in school.  I do know, however, that I really enjoy it
when I get around to opening my sign kit, and the practice will only help.
This sign is just a 20" x 42" x 1/4" masonite panel.  I used a computer
while designing it, and also cut a paint mask for the copy and the borders.
(Ok, so I cheated.)  The background was roller blended, the rest was done
with lettering quills.
I usually start with a lot of thumbnail sketches and get the general feeling
for what I want to do.  Then I scan one in and use that for a reference for
the letters, placement, and design elements.  I either edit an existing
letterstyle (as in this case) or trace my thumbnail on the computer to
create my own.  One of the things that I'm not happy about with this design
are the ornamental flourishes on the letters.  Most of them seem forced or
just plunked in.  I was struggling with them for quite a while and this was
the best I came up with, so I was happy with them at the time.  In
hindsight, I wish I had spent more time on them, because they really bother
me now.  I always come up with the perfect solution for a design problem
I've been working on about a month after it's finished.  I'm sure if I had
done some research with reference material I could have come up with
something much better, but I seem to be guilty of just wanting to produce
what comes out of my head.  If anyone is really good at this type of stuff,
I would love to know your design process when doing these.
Anyway, back to the hand lettering.  I was quite frustrated in that I
couldn't just relax and pull the strokes.  I really dwelt on getting the
perfect lines and found that I must resemble that "Old Shakey" guy everyone
always talks about. 

 And I was very slow.
Ok, enough of the self-criticism...  there is an awful lot I do like about
the design, too.  I like the colour scheme, the flow of the lettering,
positive & negative space, margins etc.  I usually make my bevelled letters
fairly subtle without much contrast because I feel too much contrast affects
the legibility in a negative way.  With so much going on in a design like
this, I find the challenge is to balance the elements so that the things you
want to advance have enough contrast with everything else that's going on.
I try to make things advance and recede with colour, size and placment.  I
feel I did an admirable job in that.  So, there's always room for
improvement, and I'll use what I learned in this excercise to create better
signs tomorrow!  Thanks again Mark.

Bob Darnell


be sure and visit Bob's web site for more great examples 
of his work...

www.members.home.net/bob.darnell
.

Past Winners
.
About the Judges
.
Sign of the Month is brought to you by...
Sign DNA



"Absolutely the best fonts on the web,
No font collection would be complete without hand lettered fonts
from Sign DNA !"

 Mark Fair
.
If you would like to enter your sign for "Sign of the Month",
 simply e-mail Mark Fair Signs
attach a .jpeg or .gif image  to your e-mail document.

We accept all types of signage.
Creativity a must!
Photo must be a good one.
Try to keep file size limited to 75 kb.
If you win, I will notify you by e-mail.
Just because I don't select your sign as "Sign of the Month"
does not mean you don't have a great sign.
Try again.

Monthly Winners will be posted by the 10th. of each month.






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Mark Fair Signs 

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12/22/98

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