How I Make My Protest Signs
by Eric Schechter
Generally, in my opinion, I have the best looking protest signs, at most of the "rallies" I attend. I've worked out some techniques to make my signs good looking, cheap, and easy to produce, so I thought I'd mention describe of those techniques here. Use these techniques if you want to, or don't use them if you don't want to. (I may add more details later, particularly if anyone sends questions or suggestions.) The military-industrial complex puts a great deal of time and money into promoting their views; surely we ought to put at least a little effort into promoting ours! Part of what inspired me to put up this web page is this quotation from a recent lecture by Richard Wolff:
Never underestimate the impact of even a small number of people doing something. It means thousands of others who see it, who hear about it, now have a more realistic feeling about such a thing. It may take them several more months or years before they ever go. But the possibility of their going just got a little more real when they see you standing there doing it. It's not as strange, it's not as hopeless, it's not as impossible, because it's been realized by another person who's not so different from them.
Actually, the type of "rally" that I attend most often is what I call a "roadside vigil." This involves standing on the public sidewalk beside a high-traffic roadway, generally during rush hour. The local police (here in Nashville) do not hassle me for this kind of activity, as long as (1) I stay on the sidewalk -- i.e., stay off the street and stay off private prooperty, and (2) don't block traffic on the sidewalk.
Advantages of a "honk" sign. There are some extra advantages to a slogan that requests honks, such as "honk for peace." It gets the passing motorists involved, which means they may remember the experience better later and they may feel more positive about it. Honking is a very simple and easy action, and perhaps it will break their inertia and get them over the threshold, from doing nothing, to feeling that they are in some small way a part of The Movement. Once they've crossed that threshold, perhaps it is more likely that they will do something more after a while. Also, the other motorists hear them, and that has an added effect on the other motorists. And when you hear someone honking in response to your sign, it makes you feel good too. Usually I try to wave to anyone who has just honked. Often I see they are grinning and waving and flashing me a V peace sign with two fingers.
Re-usable signs. I put some extra effort into making my signs, so that they'll be good-looking. So I like them to last. I may use a single sign many times, i.e,, at many rallies. Generally I keep 5 or 6 of my most favorite signs in the trunk of my car, so that I don't have to load them up every time I go to a rally.
What is good-looking? Well, it ought to be easy to read. I recommend choosing very few words, so that they can be printed in large print, and so that they can be read by anyone who is passing by quickly (e.g., a passing motorist). My signs are mostly words, black ink on white paper, but occasionally I include a graphic image if I can think of one that is appropriate and that adds a lot to the impact of the sign. Probably you should use IMPACT or some other rather bold font; my "buy less -- save the planet" sign is not a good example of that.
Computer-generated signs. My handwriting isn't terribly good. So I compose my signs on my personal computer, and print them on my home printer. This means I have a great deal of flexibility; I can put whatever I want on my signs. The main program that I use for this purpose is Microsoft Paint -- that's a "free" program included with the Windows operating system. (Go to Start, Programs, Accessories, Paint.) There's a lot you can do with paint, once you learn how to use it. The size that I most often use fits a posterboard measuring 20 inches by 30 inches. I print that with Paint set to 100% scaling, and it prints out the sign on 8 sheets of letter-size paper. Then I cut off the margins, tape the sheets together, and attach them to a 20 x 30 posterboard. Usually the "landscape" (30 wide, 20 tall) looks better, but occasionally I make a poster that is in "portrait" (20 wide, 30 tall) if that is a better fit for the content I have in mind.
If you're going to make lots of signs (and other political materials), then the ink cartridges for inkjet printers can be very expensive. Some people solve this problem by using a laserprinter, but that's black and white only. However, I recently bought a Lexmark Pro 800 inkjet printer. Its black ink cartridges are far cheaper than ordinary ink cartridges, though they're the same size. Its color cartridges used to be supercheap too, but they've risen in price; they now cost nearly the same as color cartridges for other printers. It's not a bad printer. (It's also a scanner, and I'm finding that useful too, but I'd have bought it even without that feature, just for the cheaper ink. It works fine on ordinary printer paper, but sometimes it jams when I try to print on cardstock.)
A few tips on the construction process:
- Generally I try to keep my signs out of the rain, because the rain destroys them pretty quickly. But sometimes they do get exposed to a little bit of damp -- and then they may shrink slightly when they dry out.. To compensate for that, I design my paper printout so that it is slightly larger than the posterboard. Then I fold over the margin. The folding doesn't have to be neat -- people won't see it from a distance anyway.
- I have been making enough posters that I've found it useful to buy a small, cheap 12-inch paper-cutter, to cut the margins off my printout sheets.
- When I'm taping the separate sheets together into the big poster, I generally apply the tape to the back of the poster, so that it won't show at all. And I generally use some of the more expensive tape -- e.g., Scotch brand -- because that will last longer without decaying. After I've taped the sheets together, I turn the poster over, and on the front I look for places where white cracks in the letters have appeared at the edges of the sheets, due to imperfect margin trimming. I fill in those cracks with permanent marker.
- If I expect a protest sign to be part of my main, permanent collection, I may attach it permanently to a 20 x 30 inch posterboard (purchased at Staples or Office Depot), using double-sided tape. But if I'm undecided about how many times I'll be using a printout sheet, I'll just attach it temporarily, by using some binder clips in several places along the edges of the poster.
- Sometimes I just hold the poster in my hands; but other times I like to have it on a stick. But for convenient transport I like to be able to easily detach the stick from the poster, and reattach it later. Here's how I've arranged that: Save a cardboard tube from a roll of towel paper. Tape one end of it shut, using packaging tape (a bit stronger than Scotch cellophane tape). Then tape the cardboard tube to the back of the posterboard (again, with packaging tape); it forms the sleeve for the stick.
- For a stick, I like to use PVC tubing that I purchased at a hardware store. It's about 1/2 inch in diameter, and it is mostly rigid, and lightweight and durable. I keep two segments of it, each about a meter long, One of those segments has a collar ring on one end, so that I can easily connect the two segments together into one long pole (and disconnect them later for transport).
Extra large sign. Most of my signs are 20 inches by 30 inches, as noted above; but I also have a couple of signs that are 36 by 48 inches -- e,g., my "Honk For Peace" sign. Those have to be designed in a tricky fashion, to fit into the trunk of my very small car. Here's how I do that:
Instead of the 20 by 30 inch posterboard, I buy one of the trifold display posterboards, which costs slightly more. It measures 36 by 48 inches when unfolded, but it measures 36 by 24 inches when folded. (It's the kind that may have a picture of a science fair project on its back, to explain what the trifold is used for.). I attach TWO of the towel paper tubes to the back of the posterboard -- one on each of the side flaps, though they will be the top and bottom flaps in my use of the board.
I use my printer to make the paper sign 36 by 48 inches (plus a small additional margin to allow for shrinkage); that requires taping together a larger number of letter-size sheets. The sign must be in "portrait," not "landscape," mode -- i.e., 36 wide, 48 tall. When I'm using the sign, I attach it to the posterboard with large binder clips.
When I am transporting this stuff in my car, the 36 by 48 poster paper is rolled up, inside a heavy cardboard mailing tube that I purchased at a Fed Ex / Kinko store..