Recipes for Disaster: an anarchist cookbook

A) Choosing a Production Method. Before you get too deep into the design process, you need to decide how the overlays will be produced. If you're lucky enough to have access to commercial sign-printing equipment, you can go the professional route and opt for industry-standard vinyl. Vinyl overlays are strong, light, easy to transport, and easy to apply?^but unless you have an industry insider on your team, they will probably be too expensive to produce. If you or a collaborator have late-night access to the facilities of a commercial printer, neighborhood copy shop, or advertising bureau, you may be able to output your overlays on a large-format color printer or plotter.

Printing on paper nearly always requires a process known as "tiling"?cutting the image up into smaller pieces that are then reassembled into a whole. With some popular computer programs you can perform this function automatically, by selecting the "Til-

ing" option from the Print menu. If you don't have access to a wide-track printer, try to locate a machine that can handle ii"x 17" tabloid-sized paper: the bigger your printer's output, the fewer pieces you'll have to tile back together to create a finished overlay. Most neighborhood copy shops and many corporate offices now have color printers and copiers with II"x 17" output.

For low cost and maximum durability, consider canvas. When impregnated with oil-based lacquer paint, a canvas overlay has the potential to last longer than the sign surface to which it is affixed. It is heavier to carry and more difficult to secure to the sign, but it is a reliable, low-tech alternative that can be implemented inexpensively

We don't recommend using overlays much larger than 4'x 3'. If your message is larger, you should section it and butt the sections together for the finished image. It gets very windy on boards, and large paste-overs are difficult to apply.

B) Scale. If you are changing only a small area?a few letters, a small symbol?you probably do not need to go to any elaborate lengths to match or design your "overlay," the finished image/lettering you'll be applying to the board. Just take actual measurements or tracings directly off the board. If, however, you intend to create overlays of great size and/or number of letters and you want the finished image to look as much as possible like the advertisers themselves had made it, you should plan on more elaborate preparation. Find a position roughly level with the board and looking at it square on, between 200' and 1000' away Photograph the board from this position and make a tracing from a large print of the photo. Using measurements you have taken on the board {height, width, letter height, etc.), you can create a scale drawing of your intended alteration. From this, it will be possible to determine how large your overlays will need to be and what spacing will be required between letters.

Billboard Improvement "9

C) Color Matching. There are two basic ways to match the background and colors of the lettering or image area:

1. On painted or paper boards you can usually carve a small (i"x i") sample directly off the board. This does not always work on older painted boards that have many thick layers of paint.

2. Most large paint stores carry small paint sampler books. It is possible to get a pretty close match from these samplers. We suggest sticking to solid colors and relatively simple designs for m^mum visual impact.

D) Letter Style. If you wish to match a letter style exactly, pick up a book of fonts from a graphic arts store or borrow one from a self-serve print shop. Use this in conjunction vdth tracings of existing letters to create the complete range of lettering needed for your alteration. You can convincingly fake letters that aren't on the board by finding a closely matching letter style in the book and using tracings of letters from your photo of the board as a guide for drawing the new letters.

E) Producing Overlays Prom Computer Output. Computers with desktop publishing software offer many advantages to the modern billboard liberator. Fonts and colors can be matched precisely, professional-looking graphical elements can be added to your text message, and scale and spacing become much easier to calculate.