{"id":3168,"date":"2008-05-23T18:42:13","date_gmt":"2008-05-24T01:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=3168"},"modified":"2008-05-23T18:43:36","modified_gmt":"2008-05-24T01:43:36","slug":"unchained-at-the-sign-printer-how-we-make-our-custom-yard-signs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3168\/unchained-at-the-sign-printer-how-we-make-our-custom-yard-signs\/","title":{"rendered":"Unchained at the sign printer: How we make our custom yard signs"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think this might be less than useful, but it keeps coming up in my mail. I love it that people are trying to make custom yard signs for their listings, but it seems plausible that the best technical advice will come in the comments.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Why is that? Because I use professional pre-press tools that most people don’t have.<\/p>\n

Our signs are made in QuarkXPress for the Macintosh at one-sixth scale. In other words, the big sign with the full-bleed photo is made at 25p6 x 37p6 — one pica scales to one inch. The reason for working at this scale is simply to keep the Quark files manageable.<\/p>\n

When we’re dummying up a sign, I will often work with low-resolution versions of the photos, this to enable faster printing so we can see what the sign looks like.<\/p>\n

For the finished version, I use Adobe PhotoShop to produce very high-resolution CMYK EPS photo files to be placed back in Quark, there to be scaled and positioned. It’s possible to do everything I’m talking about within PhotoShop, but Quark is much better for both positioning and typographic control.<\/p>\n

We take our listing photos at 5 megapixels. The camera will do more than that, but since most of these photos are going to be down-sampled to 640 x 480 pixels, we make a trade-off between resolution and the number of available photos on the memory card.<\/p>\n

For the smaller photos on our signs, I normally down-sample to 2400 x 1800 pixels at 300 pixels per inch. For the large photo, I normally up<\/em>-sample to 16000 x 12000 pixels at 300 ppi. If you get very close to that big image on a sign, you’ll see some pixelization. This is not visible at normal distances.<\/p>\n

Once everything is in place in Quark, I save the page as an EPS file. The raster images — the photos — will be encapsulated as is, with the positioning and scaling information conveyed in PostScript. The type, rules and logos are vector images, infinitely scalable. <\/p>\n

I import the EPS file into PhotoShop, scaling it to 25.5″ x 37.5″ at 300 pixels per inch. This Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think this might be less than useful, but it keeps coming up in my mail. I love it that people are trying to make custom yard signs for their listings, but it seems plausible that the best technical advice will come in the comments. Why is that? Because I use professional pre-press tools that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9,5,19],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3168","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-marketing","7":"category-photography","8":"category-real-estate","9":"category-technology","11":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11699,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/11699\/stopping-traffic-in-northern-virginia-justnewlistings-com-is-building-custom-yard-signs-for-its-listings\/","url_meta":{"origin":3168,"position":0},"title":"Stopping traffic in Northern Virginia: JustNewListings.com is building custom yard signs for its listings","author":"Greg Swann","date":"April 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Jay Seville of JustNewListings.com in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. sent along this photo of the customs signs he is building for his team. Lo-tech don't mean no-tech: Sign calls sell homes. If you're doing custom signs, let me know. I'm delighted to show off the hard work\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Innovation"","block_context":{"text":"Innovation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/innovation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3278,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3278\/listing-real-estate-the-bloodhound-way-the-marketing-power-of-a-custom-yard-sign-is-not-the-color-not-the-photography-not-even-that-it-is-custom-made-its-the-text-on-the-sign-that-stops-traffi\/","url_meta":{"origin":3168,"position":1},"title":"Listing real estate the Bloodhound way: The marketing power of a custom yard sign is not the color, not the photography, not even that it is custom-made — it’s the text on the sign that stops traffic","author":"Greg Swann","date":"June 26, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"We've been making custom yard signs for two years now, but that represents the third generation of our sign philosophy. The second generation featured a huge picture of Odysseus the TV Spokesmodel Bloodhound, and that was a real traffic stopper when it was new. The first generation sported a huge\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3182,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3182\/as-much-as-we-love-to-make-custom-yard-signs-for-our-listings-we-keep-an-inventory-of-our-favorite-sign-in-stock\/","url_meta":{"origin":3168,"position":2},"title":"As much as we love to make custom yard signs for our listings, we keep an inventory of our favorite sign in stock","author":"Greg Swann","date":"May 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the sign that sells listings: It rarely hangs for more than a month. We keep ten of them in stock, and I can't wait for the day when we need ten more... Technorati Tags: real estate, real estate marketing","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3370,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3370\/listing-real-estate-the-bloodhound-way-custom-yard-signs-in-english-and-spanish\/","url_meta":{"origin":3168,"position":3},"title":"Listing real estate the Bloodhound way: Custom yard signs in English and Spanish","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"These signs don't exist yet; they won't be finished until Friday at the earliest. This is the first time we've done this, custom signs with one side in English, one side in Spanish. The flyer is done in both languages, also, one on each side of the sheet. I may\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1715,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1715\/black-pearls-custom-directional-signs-can-draw-buyers-to-your-listings-and-make-your-listings-seem-to-multiply\/","url_meta":{"origin":3168,"position":4},"title":"Black Pearls: Custom directional signs can draw buyers to your listings — and make your listings seem to multiply","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 31, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, here's a Black Pearl made from sandy irritants we picked up at the StarPower Conference. First, one of the Stars is making custom signs featuring photographs of the listed home. I've been writing about custom yard signs for more than a year now, but, so far, I haven't heard\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3528,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3528\/a-real-estate-sign-of-the-times-our-first-custom-yard-sign-printed-in-both-english-and-spanish\/","url_meta":{"origin":3168,"position":5},"title":"A real estate sign of the times: Our first custom yard sign printed in both English and Spanish","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link). \u00a0A real estate sign of the times: Our first custom yard sign printed in both English and Spanish We do things that other brokers in the Phoenix area don't do. We're not the busiest listing brokerage --\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3168\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}