"Airbrush" Signs We are always looking for new and creative ideas for our cheer posters. This time we used "Adobe Photoshop 7" and came up with a neat "airbrush" design that can be modified to fit any of your school colors. We used professional materials to create ours, but this can be easily adapted and made at home. We looked at a lot of competitive signs and thought most of them were pretty boring. We wanted to make a set of posters that would really stand out. We decided to make our letters as decorative as possible. I took a college class over the summer and learned a lot of new Photoshop techniques. I found a style that I thought would work perfectly for the letters on my sign. After experimenting with several types of paper and cardboard I finally came up with a great way of transferring my designs to poster board. I printed out all of the letters for the signs using iron-on transfer paper. I used professional transfer paper and printed my letters using the permanent ink that I normally use on the t-shirts I sell. I also printed out a set of letters using "Avery" t-shirt transfer paper and regular ink. If you're doing this at home, this product is the best choice. If you use the "Avery" paper make sure you follow THEIR directions for applying the heat transfers. We used our iron to apply the Avery sheets, and the ones we practiced on turned out great. Remember to flip all of the letters you use. All drawing/photo/print programs have a command that will do this for you. We found a cute font that was similar to the Varsity style lettering, but a little more decorative and still easy to read. We laid our letters out on the poster boards we were planning on using. We first tried the letters on purple poster board with yellow underneath, and did not like how it looked. We all agreed the yellow on top of purple looked best. This is why you need to take the time to arrange and rearrange your letters and poster board before you cut anything out. Try to stand as far away from it as you can, so you can see what the crowd will be looking at. Cut this out by hand. Try not to touch the color on the lettering. Any dust or fingerprints will be heated to the poster board when you press the cut out letters down. Make sure you leave a border of white around each letter. We will explain why later. We found that the letters stick better if you heat them to the backside of the poster board (less shiny). Usually, this is the side of the poster board that has the price tag on it. Always lay your letters out on the poster before you cut it out. This way you can move things around and see what dimensions you prefer for the sign. Even though my three words are all different lengths, I decided to place them on poster boards that were the SAME size. When you see the three together they look much more professional than if they were on different sized posters. Just remember to flip them upside down when you get ready to apply them. You can use a ruler, or t-square to position your letters in the center of the board. We used my dad's framing square for this. I then marked where I wanted to cut my board. You can cut this out with scissors, but cut slowly and try to keep your line as straight as possible. A crooked line really stands out when the poster board underneath is a much darker color. We recommend an extra large paper cutter. Most schools have one of these in the art room. Ask for permission to use this and always let an adult do the cutting for you. We used our professional press to make the posters on this site. We set our heat press for 300 degrees and then heated for 15 seconds. As I said before, you need to leave a white outline on your letters. When they are pressed down the white outline actually is transparent and will not show. After your image is heated you will need to remove the backing as soon as possible. The border allows you to pick at the edges of the transfer without destroying the printed image. We have also found that the less detail we trim off of each letter the quicker it peels off. As you can see, I didn't cut out the center of the "O". Before you press down the letters, measure all around and made sure they are centered in the middle of the poster. As soon as you are through pressing down the letters you must peel the backing off. This will be very HOT, so let an adult do this for you. Once the letters cool down, the backing will not come off. This is why you can only press one letter at a time. We tried pressing "let's" all at once and could only peel the first two letters off. As this picture and the next 5 show, we peeled the backings off in just about 6 or 7 seconds. If you have more letters to add to your poster make sure to line them up with a ruler before you press them down. Remember to cover up the already glued down letters with a sheet of nonstick paper. This will keep them from sticking to your iron or heat press. Once you have all of the words ironed/pressed on the white poster board you are ready for the next layer. We cut out three yellow poster boards that were TWO inches wider and TWO inches taller than the three white poster boards. Before you glue these together, lay everything out on the floor and see how it looks. We have found that projects like this always turn out different than you think they will. We originally cut out our three white posters the same size. This was because we wanted them to have a more uniform shape. We did not like how the word "GO" looked because it had too much white on each side. We didn't want to change any of the other layers so we trimmed 1-½ inches off of each end. This time when you glue the pieces together you will need to apply your glue to the back of the WHITE poster board. You need to do this since it is the smaller poster. Always smear your glue out to the edges of the poster. Keep a paper towel handy because this is messy. Do not get glue on your other hand or other fingers because you will need to pat down the white poster when you turn it over and place it on the yellow poster. I used my "cooled down" heating press to flatten the two posters together. The pressure from our press helped to distribute the glue evenly so I did not have any puckers or bubbles form under the poster. If you do not have a heat press, a couple of heavy books will work just as well. Leave them on the posters for about 30 minutes. It will still be a little damp, but should look great. Make sure you cover the entire area with books. This will give a nice smooth finish to your poster. We cut our last layer (purple poster board) TWO inches wider and TWO inches taller than the yellow poster board. Before we glued them down, we laid the posters out to see how they looked on the purple. We glued these two pieces together just like we glued the white poster board to the yellow. We put the glue on the back of the smaller poster (yellow) and smeared it to the edges. Then we turned the yellow board over and placed it on the purple poster board. We used our cooled heating press to flatten the posters together. You can again use a couple books for this. We always add a final layer of foam board to the back of our posters. This gives each sign a lot more strength and keeps the edges from bending. We placee all three posters on a large piece of foam board and then traced around each poster. When you cut out the foam board make sure you cut TO THE INSIDE of the line. You want the poster to overlap slightly. A cutting knife or exacto knife will give a much nicer edge. Just be sure to let an adult do the cutting. The white edges of the foam board are really noticeable to the crowd. We always buy a permanent marker that matches the last poster layer and go over the edges with it. I really like the "Permapaque" markers that I bought at "Hobby Lobby". Go over the white edge with the marker and make sure there are no white areas showing. Put the glue on the top of the foam board. Smear the glue to the edges with your finger. We used our cooled heat press to press the two pieces together. If you use books, leave them on for about an hour since this is the final layer. We were really happy with our signs. If you would like a set of signs in YOUR SCHOOL COLORS and/or with a DIFFERENT PHRASE check out our store. Let us use our professional equipment and make a set for you. We have many examples of different color combinations that we've created to match other schools in our area. If your color is not there, we can create it for you. We can also customize a set of signs for whatever phrase you want. (This isn't online yet, but should be up by August 21st)