Which tools do you use to complete your work?

A signage designer is not only using the computer as center of the universe but uses different kind of tools to complete the (design) job. In this article I’ve compiled a list of most important tools that I use to design, create and produce signage, wayfinding and other related design products.

Top 10 of most important tools

Which tools do you use for your job

  1. The Fundamentals of Typography - A great book full of examples about designing with type.
  2. Stanley Tape Rule - Made of steel, one of the most important hand tools I use to quickly measure something.
  3. Stainless steel ruler - Excellent for measuring narrow size items, exact to the millimeter.
  4. Steel caliper - To measure the distance between two symmetrically opposing sides and to measure the thickness of materials.
  5. AcrySign color samples - Material color may differ from standard color systems like Pantone, therefore I use a sample chain to check the color.
  6. PANTONE Color Bridge Coated - Pantone Color Matching System (PMS) is the worlds standard color usage system, can’t live without it. Most design studios (graphic) work with PMS.
  7. Sikkens RAL - A color system mainly used used for paint colors. On of the most popular color is RAL 9010 (white).
  8. Black permanent Fineliner - Using it all day for writing, designing, quick scketches and more. Using dozens of them.
  9. Srewdriver - The small srewdriver represents a variety of machinery used to develop & create signage systems.
  10. Calculator - To use for design calculations, mathematic relations, finance and more.

More items on the list

To complete the manufacturing part at the company we use various machinery like: Vinyl cutter & plotter, laser engraving, laser cutting and CNC engraving machinery. The design elements are developed with the Adobe Design Suite CS3, we especially work with Adobe Illustrator which is the probably best professional drawing program (in my opinion) for creating vector based design & signage systems. Other programs like Autocad and specific engraving software are used to manufacture the products. We make use of 3rd parties for painting jobs and creating metal structures.

Some signage examples

Signage example

Landmark Signage with the logo Boutercheese cutted in 8 mm Acrysign and painted in different PMS colors.

Signage example

Bronze engraved nameplate for Heineken Headoffice in Amsterdam.

Signage example

Vinyl cutted selfadhesive foil, cutted in a blueprint pattern of large cities around the world for TomTom Headoffice Amsterdam.

Signage example

Boxed LED signage for IDEXX, a laboratory testing company in the Netherlands.

Share your tools and creations

Thank you Katy for the inspiration idea: “What’s in My Purse?”

So.. tell me! - I’m interested to know the tools you use to complete your (design) job.

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8 Responses to “Which tools do you use to complete your work?”

Sander Spek
July 10th, 2008

Wow, lovely signage examples! Great work!

My job is in research rather than design, so I mostly just use a computer, my mobile phone, my palm handheld, and lots of Moleskines and Pilot fineliners. When I do (non-professional, mind you) designing, I use the same computer, pens and paper, and also my great typography books (Bringhurst, Lupton, White) and the internet for inspiration.

1.

Sander Baumann
July 10th, 2008
DesignWorkPlan Admin

Sander Spek - Thanks Sander!

Thank you for sharing your list of tools that completes your (research) design job! I love to see some sketches of your work, before (handdrawn) and the final results. And thanks for the mention of Robert Bringhurst, I think you talk about The Elements of Typographic Style, a great booklet.

2.

Leon P
July 11th, 2008

I’m trying to be a designer. For websites I use Firefox + web developer + firebug + colorzilla, Notepad++, pen, pencil, paper and Paint.net (for resizing images). No Photoshopping here!

By day I’m a teacher: laptop, projector, interactive white board, computer, pen, paper.

3.

Sander Baumann
July 11th, 2008
DesignWorkPlan Admin

Leon P - Thank you for sharing your list of items to complete your job as a designer and teacher. How can you survive without Photoshop? ;) For web image publishing I’m using Adobe Fireworks, in my opinion one of the finest programs.

I’ve read in your about you teach about readability, usability and accessibility. To what field is this limited? If you are teaching for print/web I’m interested in what you think implementing these expertises in signage and wayfinding. Just curious.

4.

Eftu
July 12th, 2008

Wow, very inspiring. Thanks.

5.

Sander Spek
July 12th, 2008

Hi Sander. Yes, I was talking about The Elements of Typographic Design (Robert Bringhurst), Thinking With Type (Ellen Lupton), and The Elements of Graphic Design (Alexander White). All three are great books. When making (slide) presentations, I find the work of Garr Reynolds (book title: Presentation Zen / weblog: presentationzen.com) very inspiring.

And my sketches, hehe, I usually don’t find them really publishable. The last design thing I did where these information posters: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=4433&l=6778e&id=300300542 They were a rush job (14 hrs straight), and I think they gave me too much text to stuff onto the posters, but I still kind of like the end result. I will look to see if I still have some sketches of that job at home. (Btw, the fonts used are Gill Sans and Underware’s Bello. They actually wanted me to use Comic Sans, but I refused.)

6.

James Kurtz III
September 4th, 2008

Don’t forget graph paper! Gotta sketch out those ideas.

7.

Sander Baumann
September 5th, 2008
DesignWorkPlan Admin

Thanks James for your comment, I like to sketch things out on paper, it gives you more creativity than a computer mouse. Do you have some sketches online so we can see them?

8.

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