Recyled Signs for Drinkers

Here's a set of coasters that I made from some rejected engraved signs.
I work with this stuff a lot everyday, and I've been trying for a while to figure out a way to stop throwing the scraps/leftovers/extras/rejects away. These are made from four 2" tiles of engraving stock mounted to another 4" tile of engraving stock. Then I use a template to give them a smooth routed edge and a radius corner. The uneven surface of the tiles, keeps the bottom of your cocktail glass from sticking to the coaster when you take a drink.
The best part about this project, is that it keeps a little bit of petroleum-based plastic out of our landfills.


more one-of-a-kind designs here:
Recyled Signs for Drinkers




the back sides of these coaster are not as pretty.

Turn an old crappy plotter into a vinyl cutter

Luberth is your one stop shop for learning how to hack an old plotter. It provides lots of helpful links to find cheap blades and software too.

via:
hack-a-day

Neon Institute For Sale

Did you see Shawna Peterson's Neon workshop at the Maker's Faire this weekend?
Did it inspire you to want to become a tube-bender yourself? Well your in luck! This morning on craigslist I found an opportunity just for you. The National Neon Institute in Benicia is for sale. Not only can you go to school there you could own the school! ....and live there too! Eat, sleep, and breathe Neon... is that poisonous?

http://www.craigslist.org/eby/for/154962179.html

Large neon sign shop and the only State Certified Neon Vocational Trade School west of the Mississippi River. Eighteen workstations. Huge glass inventory. On-site dorm for out of state students. Eight hundred sq. ft. apartment above business. Too much to explain here. Contact Gary for more information at 707-747-6167

Live Richly Parody

CitiBank sucks for a lot of reasons. They were asking for it, when they chose to use the slogan "Live Richly." April Winchell ask her readers for some ideas for billboard corrections, then her boyfriend John photoshopped the winners into billboard photographs.

via:
Violet
and:
ChrisO

Help Squishy Fight AIDS

My friend and band mate Katherine is training everyday to help raise money for the San Francisco AIDS foundation. She will be riding her bike for AIDS Lifecycle, a 7-day, 585-mile bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angles.

Help her help.



Nearly 1 in 40 San Franciscans is infected with HIV, and we have the 3rd largest number of people diagnosed with AIDS in the country.

Culture Jamming with Other Cinema

at Artists' Television Access
992 Valencia Street SF
8:30pm $5

SAT. 4/22: PRANKS AND INTERVENTIONS

In the first of a pair of culture-jamming gigs, we host three incendiary media miscreants and a mixed bag of new (and old) tricks. In a mid-career retrospective of the Keatonesque Tom Borden, we witness his gutsy, occasionally scatological performances, spanners in the works of the commercial machine. Also slated is the Metavid project, a 30-min. show n’ tell by Michael Dale and Aphid, who have managed to hack the C-SPAN closed-caption window, inputting critical info on featured Congressmen in real-time. The jam-boree kicks off with a set of inspired and inspiring guerrilla tactical jokes from the Yes Men, the Biotic Baking Brigade, a Boston Tea Party-crasher, and prankster godfather Joey Skaggs. Broadcast live by Neighborhood Public Radio.

and....

SAT. 4/29: BILLBOARD LIBERATION FRONT PRESENTS POPAGANDA

In the second installment of our Pranks series, the BLF, those storied stalwarts of late-night billboard alteration, surface in our gallery—merry, masked, and Mayday-mobilized, to introduce Pedro Carvajal’s POPaganda. Pedro’s hr-plus doc focuses on the antics of painter Ron English, a modern-day Robin Hood of Madison Ave., who renders an alternative universe of advertising subversion. Shepard Fairey, Daniel Johnston, and the Dandy Warhols also have a hand in the production. PLUS Craig Baldwin’s history of billboard hits, Bryan Boyce’s latest celebrity defenestration, and a preview of Negativland’s upcoming DVD. Free toast and grape jam (and grape wine)!

Sign of the Week: 14

How-To Pick up Poo: 101



Adam Engelhart from SF MetroBloggers found this one. Negligent dog walkers beware.

2 points for the CDC

The California Department of Corrections was busy this weekend sticking it to Chevron and the DOD, and because they're using your grandma's web servers at geoshities, you won't be able to see the original post for a while, as it got boingboing-ed. Come on CDC, free web hosting is not free! It costs us all valuable time, and makes us mad. Do we need to start a fundraiser to raise $30 for you to spend on a real host?
Supporting Geocities is not what I would call culture jamming.



via:
The Billboard Liberation Front

Leslie Nielsen has a posse

Leslie Nielsen is such a bad-ass tagger that he doesn't even need to use his intials, or a short nick name. He uses a big black paint marker to claim his turf with all thirteen letters of his name. If the police happen to roll up on him in the act, he just flashes his badge, and says "Don't worry, I'm officer Frank Drebin working under cover here."



I found this tag outside of 111 mina last month after the nerdsalon.


Don't miss Leslie Nielsen, as President Harris in Scary Movie 4

The more you read the more you know

Say someone asks you to design a flyer or a poster that has a "wild west" theme. Where do you start? I might suggest page 186 of
Type Style Finder. This book is a great tool for designers. Not only does it contain more than 850 fonts, each of the forty themed sections have color pallets that corespond.



Check out the evilsigntist books page, for more suggested reading and reviews of books on signage, typography, design and way finding.

Sign of the Week: 13

Violet and I met up with some friends for dinner last night at my favorite vegitarian restaurant, Millennium. I snapped this shot of one of my favorite signs in town, that's accross the street. The Geary Smoke Shop sells Liquo"R"(with a small uppercase R)wine and "Grocerise".

Funny, I always thought "Grocerise" was a verb.
ie."I'm going to grocerise that guy!"
Meaning: I'm going to pack him in a small box and stack him on a shelf with the rest of my goods.

ISA Sign Expo

I almost forgot, this weekend is your chance to rub elbows with reps from over 600 companies, trying to sell you stuff make you a better sign maker. This year it's being held in beautiful Orlando, Florida. The thing I like most about Florida, is that it's a long way from California. The thing I like second most are the books of Carl Hiaasen.

Stormy Weather
Tourist Season
Skin Tight
Strip Tease
Skinny Dip

The Jackson Street Project

My buddy Jackson has a whole flickr photoset dedicated to him over at SFist.

Sign of the week:12

My first conclusion, was that someone thought this
Cortland Ave. billboard was asking them to "Beat" Donlad Tump Live! instead of "Meet." Upon further investigation, I noticed evidence of some sort of addition to the sign. I think that it may have said "graffiti" with an arrow pointing at the blood on Trump's head. This comes to me with great relief, as I was beginning to think that "learning" to become wealthy may cause brain aneurysms.

disclaimer:
sign of the week does not happen every week.

The Orange Princess Gets My Vote

Who knew former Ukrainian prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko was a tagger?



Why can't we have Buffy/Princess Leia political leaders?

via:
boingboing

see also:
Ukrainian Street Art

Evil Signtist Braille Resource Page

This weekend I finally got my Braille resource page up. It's filled with lots of products, books and reference links for the visually impaired, and the people they live and work with. I would really like this page to become something that others refer to for help in finding products and services to make their lives easier. Below is a picture of a braille measuring tape. This is just one example of what the sighted majority takes for granted.

previous:
Louis Braille's birthday
Braille Round-up
Google Braille