What exactly does your vinyl lettering need to say?
Choosing your words and making them count.
When contacting a sign company, for vinyl lettering pricing, you will be asked what the lettering needs to say (unless you have a file to submit that has the necessary text or information.) Vinyl letters are initially priced by size and then by the amount of characters (letters) to be produced. To get an accurate character count, you will need to formulate the information you want for your lettering, and count out each individual letter for your total number of characters. Some lettering is very simple and only requires a couple of letters and or numbers, for instance, a DOT number for a commercial vehicle or a CA number for boat lettering identification. Other lettering projects may can consist of a paragraph or two for wall lettering. In each instance, every character counts, so make sure to include dashes, periods, backslashes, etc. (you get the idea.)
Keep in mind when choosing your words the amount of available space you have. If you are working with limited space, but have a lot to say, you may need to down-size the information you initially wanted to utilize. Sometimes less can be more with vinyl lettering to be viewed effectively. A lot of words in a small space may be hard to read, especially if they need to be seen from a distance, thus making the money you spend on lettering somewhat of a waste. Take a moment to think about what it is you really want to convey in your wording to make sure it will be concise, and direct. Why spend money on lettering that may get over-looked or is not important to your agenda.
When you have a final character count and know exactly what your vinyl letters need to say, your sign company can better assist you with pricing, even if you are not sure of a size yet. In turn, knowing your character count, can help determine your lettering size. Small amounts of information can be fairly large (depending on the available space they will be used in); whereas, large amounts of lettering, may have to be smaller than you'd like to fit them into your available space.
