Our latest project is creating gradient halftone dot patterns that can either be cut from vinyl or vinyl stencil material (for painting) . These are still in the process of being tweaked but other patterns are or will be available: linear grid, benday style, etc. Great for comic shop windows, pop art projects (ala Roy Lichtenstein), etc.

We've just purchased a 4' roll (actually 46") of the new 14 oz. vinyl banner material manufactured by Bandanna Banner and we're kind of anxious to put it to use. The roll comes with double grommets spaced every 2 feet along the top and bottom thermal welded hem. It gives us the flexibility of having ready hemmed and grommeted banner material in stock without custom ordering every banner blank. If you'd like to try it, we'll offer these 14 oz. banners in the following common 4' sizes at our 10 oz banner prices:

• 4' x 4'- $78
  
• 4' x 6'- $102
  
• 4' x 8'- $126
• 4' x 10'- $150
• 4' x 12'- $174
• 4' x 14'- $198
• 4' x 16'- $222
• 4' x 18'- $246
• 4' x 20'- $270.

The Bandanna Banner vinyl material is white. These are the same base prices as our 10 oz. and other options can still be added like extra wording, outlines, shadows , artwork, etc. We think you'll like it!

In case you haven't noticed, we've added quite a few more items to our Graphics section. Here's a small sampling:

All of these are available for cutting from either intermediate or premium grade vinyl, in any color. If you have text you want to add to any of these, just let us know.

Looking for a nice vinyl posterized graphic of Barack Obama or John McCain? How about one of these? Each is available in intermediate or premium grade vinyl from 8" to 24" wide. You'll find them on our Political & Patriotic page of our vinyl graphics section.

For the past week or so I've been redoing all of the webpages on Signtech-RTA.com- making use of server side includes (SSI) for the header, menu and footer portions of each page.

If you've ever gone through the process of creating a webpage, you'll know what I'm referring to here:
Occasionally a stray > bracket or other character will appear in an odd place on a page. It usually happens when you've been doing a lot of copying and pasting and weren't being real careful. You know what caused it but finding that pesky character in the code to correct it can be a problem.

Well I stumbled on a handy little feature in Firefox for locating the source of these stray characters. Simply highlight it and right click on it and select "View Selection Source". It will bring up a small window with a snippet of your html code for just that portion of the page with the character selected.

Although the ampersand has been around since the First Century AD, it really wasn't used as an independent graphic element until creative signwriters began working it into their designs in the early part of the 20th Century. They were no doubt influenced by the Art Nouveau, and later Art Deco movements of the time.

The typography of that era, for the most part, gave no special treatment to the ampersand, however you could often find the complete word and done rather ornately in printed brochures. Many hand-lettered signs from around the turn of the century would also make use an ornate and.

An ampersand, when used as an independent graphic element in a sign layout, can be a different color, size or weight that the surrounding copy. The ampersand can be placed between, on top,
underneath or alongside the relative copy as long as it reads correctly. Try different combinations to see what looks best.

Be sure and check out the new ampersand category in our symbols and graphics section. Many are vintage and unique from old hand-lettered sources. If you've found a decorative ampersand you'd like to see added, just let us know.

By the way, it's not considered good writing practice to use the ampersand in place of and in normal text.

Although our graphics are usually ordered in a single color, many can also be done in multi-color. Here is a single black on white image as it appears in our Retro graphics section. It was modified from a Cobb Shin advertising stock cut originally done around the 40's. The curves have been smoothed and any open sections have been closed to allow for color separation.

And here it is with color added (note: these may not be standard vinyl colors). What a difference! The upcharge would be determined by the number of additional vinyl colors. Each color would be supplied to you to as a separate application with registration marks provided to get all into perfect alignment.

Those vintage Cobb Shinn cartoons seen in the Retro graphics section are my latest project. The smoothing on each can take up to a couple of hours, but I'm taking them one at a time beginning with those that I feel would have the most appeal as vinyl graphics.