Signs

[9366MJON]

Can anbody recommend a free computor program to create signs to put on buildings.

[Graeme Dunbar]

What sort of signs?

Depending on the type of sign, quite a lot can be done with an ordinary word processor or a simple (free) graphics and image manipulation program such as Paint.net.

It might also be worth looking to see what clip art there is on the Internet if it involves graphics.

[9366MJON]

Thanks for the reply, I have had a go with my word processer but not with much sucess i will try Paint.net and i ahve been told to try Gimp. Kind regards Malcolm

[Graeme Dunbar]

Gimp is a lot more sophisticated and takes more getting used to. Paint.net is supposedly an independent replacement for the old Paint program that used to come with Windows and is more straight forward.

Another free program that might be worth looking at is Inkscape. I'd say that is somewhere between the two.

[9366MJON]

Thanks again I will have a look at inkscape.

[Hugh Norwood]

Depending on what signage you want - there are loads of images of period advertising poster on the net you can download, scale to size and print.

[9366MJON]

Thanks for the response. I was looking to create some bespoke signs for industrial buildings
eg D Williams Blacksmith and Farrier.
Kind regards Malcolm

[Graeme Dunbar]

It might need a combination of techniques then. I suspect the most readily available source of different fonts and letter effects might be a word processor. The text could be exported as an image and imported into a graphics program. That would be one way of (say) changing the content of an image of an old metal sign of the sort used for  advertising.

Edit: I see it is possible to import fonts into Inkscape and Gimp. Also drawing text on a curve, adding outlines, 3D effects and so on, though I've not tried it.

[9366MJON]

taking into consideration my past experience with this sort of thing ( as an retired architectural draftsman is was trained several thimes on CAD package, but we wont go into that disaster!) I think i will have to go to Sankey Scenics but i will try Inkscape Many thanks for your help.

[Ian McAulay]

I'm a bit late to this party (been on holiday). I use Inkscape and Gimp (often in combination on jobs like this. On Windows (can't speak for Macs) both of these use whatever fonts are installed on the computer. And there are a lot of free fonts out there on the net.

I've attached the artwork for a building I have under "construction" (it's still at the drawing and test print stage). This one was all done in Gimp. The straight text is just text. Acme was lifted from an image of a historic logo I found via Google Images. I traced the lettering afresh to sharpen it, skewed the whole thing to get the italic-on-a-slope look, and drew in the swash underneath freehand. The ghost sign effect is done with transparency and several effects filters in Gimp.

Michael Scott has a good tutorial on using Inkscape to do this on his Chandwell Youtube channel:
https://youtu.be/SVQLMUm0f1s?si=mKK_UsyWdk5dJylt

Hope that helps

Ian

[Graeme Dunbar]

Wow! There is a lot to take in there. I can see I will be looking into Inkscape more than I have done - and some more of his videos.