sign advice

[celticdragonfly]

Okay, so I'm told it would be really good for us to have signs for the breastfeeding protest Saturday.

Figuring out what to put on the signs I can do. I may ask Maggie if she wants one, and ask what she wants on it. One other mother did that - she reports that her son said “Grown ups are supposed to be feeding their babies and you guys are being mean”

But I don't know HOW to make protest signs. Never really did that sort of thing before. What's an easy way to make signs? Where do you find the stuff to make them? What's the easiet way? I'm picturing ideally some sort of firm cardboard thing that you could oh, I dunno, peel off a sheet covering a sticky side and put a nice color printed-out sign from my computer onto it. Does such a thing exist, and where do you buy it? And what do I use for a handle? Maybe a paint stirrer stick, those are pretty easy to get.

Advise me?

Comments

[lolleeroberts.livejournal.com]

Paint stir sticks work okay. For the sign itself - figure out how big you want it to be. 8 by 11? Legal size? 11 by 17?

You can take a piece of posterboard, cut it in half and hand letter your sign. There's one school of picket signs that says handlettering works better - looks less assembly line. Just do a clean job of it. Or you could print it out on a sheet of paper and then staple or glue it to the posterboard. I usually put signs on both sides of the stick, staple them together around the edges and staple them to the stick in the middle. (A staple gun helps with that.) That way no matter which way the sign is turned, your message is visible.

Lollee, flexing long dormant protest march muscles.

[jenna-thorn.livejournal.com]

My thought would be more from the other side, as in from the observer's side.

Make it large, make it legible. Not that the sign itself has to be large, since then Maggie couldn't carry her own and they'd be cumbersome, but if you can only read it from less than three feet away, it's not going to register as anything but a splotch of color from across the street or even a large photo.

Think of the garage sales signs you've seen. The ones with curlicues to the side and hearts for dots aren't readable. Big thick block letters in black markers are. I wouldn't go less than half a sheet of poster board size.

But yes, paint stirrers do make good handles, though if you have the really cheap ones, a wrap of duct tape might be nice for splintering and a staple gun if you have it handy is helpful for attaching as duct tape does not hold paper to wood all that well, not after the first touch of movement.

[estokien.livejournal.com]

Not actual advice, but it does remind me of something I saw somewhere, I think in a Harry Turtledove novel. Union protesters would get big solid pieces of wood from construction sites for making their signs, so that when the owners would bring in the strike busters, they had big solid clubs to fight back with. I'm guessing that nobody is going to bring in guys with billy clubs against nursing mothers however...

[selenite.livejournal.com]

Sometime in the past century the cops caught on. I've been cautioned to not bring heavy wood to a protest because it'll get confiscated.

[friday18.livejournal.com]

So, from having spent years working in politics, here's my advice:

If I could only tell you one thing, it would be to use a long, light-weight stick. Yes, you can use a paint stirrer, but then you need to hold it up for as long as your protest will last. Of that's about 10 minutes, you're good. Anything longer than that, and your arms will start to get very tired.

A long, slender dowel works well. You can staple signs to both sides of it for two-way visibility. It's light, which means you're not hefting a ton of weight around (1x2s get heavy pretty quickly). You can also get them in some pretty long lengths. I would recommend 6 feet in length, with the sign covering the top 18 inches or so. For Maggie, a dowel maybe 3 feet long will do.

The dowel only needs to be strong enough to hold up its own weight and that of some poster board. Unless you expect it to be very windy, two pieces of poster board per sign (or one, cut in half) should suffice.

The only downside to long sign-poles is if you have a small car. If you drive a mini-van (which, I must admit, is how I picture you) or an SUV, you're all set.

I've got to say that I've seen many enthusiastic sign-holders give the project up pretty quickly when they try to hold short or heavy signs up in the air for more than a few minutes at a time.

Hope this helps!