My passion project for the past handful of years has been making Nice Signs and complimenting strangers. I usually stand at a random intersection or sidewalk by my house or work. This was a challenge to push myself out of my comfort zone and compliment strangers in the most public place I could think of: Los Angeles.
I will usually start my projects with to-scale layouts to help visualize size whenever I'm working with physical media. I drafted this layout in Illustrator before tiling it to fit within the dimensions.
I absolutely adore repurposing old cardboard or wood to make my signs. There's something refreshing about reusing leftover materials and turning them into colorful attention-grabbers. Using old cardboard also makes producing these signs almost free.
Pardon my messy desk. I work best when all of my materials (and coffee) are within arm's reach.
A detail shot of the sign. I wanted high-contrast colors for this sign so I went with my tried-and-true color combination. A lot of my signs have dark outlines to help with both visibility and readability.
I have to focus on phrases and designs that promote a fast read. A pedestrian walking down the street needs to be able to read my sign and so does a car driving at 45 miles per hour. That also brings up an interesting challenge with locations: I try and scout out where I imagine a healthy number of either pedestrians or cars will be able to see me clearly without me being a distraction. That usually involves a bit of trial and error at the beginning of every session.
The final outcome. I'm really pleased with how it came out! From concept to completion in just under
four hours.
four hours.
(this video was taken WAY before 2020)
I got super lucky and just happened upon someone else's post of me in the wild. The point of these
signs isn't to promote myself or be on social media- that's why I intentionally don't have a name tag
or put my social accounts on the signs I make. My hope is that someone who needs some words of encouragement sees my Nice Signs as... a nice sign.
signs isn't to promote myself or be on social media- that's why I intentionally don't have a name tag
or put my social accounts on the signs I make. My hope is that someone who needs some words of encouragement sees my Nice Signs as... a nice sign.