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At one time if you
had a request for a jazzy looking chalk board for the local pub or a pavement
sign for a sandwich shop that looked that little bit different from all
the rest, you would have either had to have been an exceptional artist,
or farmed the work out to a chalk artist. Not any more with the arrival
of a superb product range from Knomad Chalkart Systems called, unsurprisingly,
the Knomad Chalkart Studio.
Developed by professional
chalk artists in Australia, the Knomad Chalkart Studio is a collection
of 260 hand drawn images, every one a unique and detailed high-resolution
image that has been specifically designed for use in the sign industry.
The images themselves have transparent backgrounds, which work in conjunction
with Adobe Photoshop, making it easy to mix and match individual images
to make a customised image.
Of the eight editions
available we were sent the Pub Pack, I wonder if they are trying to tell
us something. The other editions include the Organic Pack, the Deli/Bakery
Pack, the Starter Edition, Intermediate Edition, Specialist Edition, Professional
Edition and finally, all of the above on one CD called The Whole Collection.
The difference between each edition? Well the Pub Pack edition has 20
images designed specifically for use in pubs, small bistros and the like,
while the other editions are either targeted towards a specific industry
or are a chosen selection of images from the collection.
Knomad offer some
unique bonuses as well. Now you can not only buy images individually and
download them from the website, but you can also buy the entire library
of artwork in a low resolution GIF format, ideal for laying out artwork
for jobs and gaining client approval before you go ahead and purchase
the high resolution version. This library is called The Designer Library
and is available on the website for $50 (under £30). We’re
also reliably informed that there will be some free downloads available
on the website, allowing potential purchasers to test the images on their
printer before they commit to purchase.
The quality of the
images is truly outstanding, but rather than prattling on for a couple
of pages, we’ve taken the liberty of taking the Chalkart Studio out
of the box and we’re going to make a sign with it. After all, this
is what you’ll be doing if you purchase it, so it’s probably
going to be useful to read how we got on.
Inside the box is
a 32 page full colour manual and as you’d expect, a professionally
presented CD case containing the Chalkart Studio CD. The bizarre thing
is, once you’ve got the CD into the computer, you kind of expect
to see some fancy menu pop up with the Knomad Chalkart Studio logo splashed
all over the place, but its not there! Why? Well to secure the CD from
being pirated (illegally copied) the files are contained inside a zip
file and are password protected. Nice easy solution to get you up and
running though, you can either log into the Knomad website and follow
the links to register or fill out the license agreement in the box and
return a copy to your seller. Once you’ve done either of the above
you’ll get a password that’ll allow you into the treasures within.
After entering the
password, you can now unzip the files to your hard drive. You’ll
find a helpful PDF file that explains how to get started, another PDF
that is a reference card of the particular edition you have purchased
and of course, all the images in .PSD (Adobe PhotoShop) format. Our edition
(the Pub Pack) included various food items such as roast beef along with
montages of cocktails and various other drinks. Our personal favourite
is the fish & chips image, the fish has been particularly well drawn
and looks like such a happy chappy, you’d be hard pushed to find
anyone who didn’t like this image.
Being in .PSD format,
you’ll need a copy of Adobe Photoshop to be able to open the images
and edit them, but there are many packages, Adobe Illustrator and CorelDRAW
being two of them, that will import a .PSD format file. Fortunately the
industries sign software SignLab has now included support for this file
format in version 7, but for those still using version 5 or lower, you
may have a problem as .PSD files are unsupported. FlexiSign Pro, or at
least version 7 of FlexiSign Pro also offers support for the .PSD format.
Due to the vast amount of graphics software used in the sign industry
it is impossible for us to check compatibility with it all, so it is well
worth checking whether the software you use regularly will import .PSD
files, or look into purchasing Adobe Photoshop if you don’t already
own it. For the purposes of a smooth review, we’re going to assume
you already have Adobe Photoshop or software capable of editing .PSD files.
Laying out the sign
is quick and easy. We’re using CorelDRAW, which allows you to import
.PSD files with transparent backgrounds, so a couple of clicks and the
image is onscreen. Once the image is in place, we place text around it,
much as you would produce any other sign. We’ve chosen to do a breakfast
menu, using white vinyl for the lettering and an image that displays a
variety of breakfast items.
Printing the image
is just as simple providing you’re familiar with the printer and
software. As we do not have print facilities in-house at the moment, we
took our image along to a helpful signmaker who has a 30” Roland
VersaCamm, and he printed us virtually everything from the Pub Pack Edition.
One thing that had us a little puzzled was the cut lines, or rather the
absence of them. This was quickly solved by manually drawing the cut lines
in SignLab, but for those who struggle with drawing their own cut lines,
this could pose a slight hiccup to the process.
With the images now
printed, we set about making up our chalkboard by getting some sheet material
(in this case some 5mm foamboard) and painting it with chalkboard paint.
There are numerous suppliers of chalkboard paint, but it is all pretty
similar stuff and dries relatively quickly. There are also suppliers who
will provide you with ready to use chalkboard substrates, and although
this may be a little more expensive, it does speed up the process. Once
the substrate was dry we applied the now printed image and the white lettering
to it and that, as they say, was that. We’d imagined there to be
something more to it before we started, but that really is all there is
to it.
Up to now, the Chalkart
Studio may appear nothing more than a well-produced image library, but
one of the unique things about this collection is the fact that it is
supplied as .PSD files with transparent backgrounds. For those unfamiliar
with these types of images, all it means in real terms is that it makes
it easier to use several images together to produce a new image. You can
resize one of the images, overlay it onto or behind another, or even use
the Adobe Photoshop gadgetry (filters) to customise elements of the image.
This makes the Chalkart collection of images far more than just an image
library, it is more akin to the vector images we use in the sign industry
everyday in which you can edit and alter the image to suit the particular
sign you are producing.
Knomad Chalkart Studio
is an unusual product in that by the time we’ve written how to make
a sign using the images provided on the CD, you could’ve logged into
the website, downloaded one of the free images, printed it and applied
it to your own chalkboard! You can just use the images you buy either
on CD or from the website but something that may take a little longer
to master is manipulating and customising the images to suit the sign
you want to make, however, with a virtually unlimited amount of variations
possible with the images available we’re sure the Knomad Chalkart
Studio would be a useful digital asset to any sign business, and an asset
that would help produce great looking chalkboards again and again.
Website: www.chalkartstudio.co.uk
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