Download your free protest sign here!

On Tuesday Cowalker wrote a diary asking us what our protest signs would be for this coming weekend. In the comments there were a couple of people asking about how to make signs. This diary elaborates on my comment from yesterday about how to make a protest sign and also includes some large size downloadable text and graphics that can be pasted together or pasted on your protest sign.

Before jumping below the fold,  I'd like to remind you that RenaRF has organized a place for bloggers to meet for the march  in Our Nations's Capitol for Saturday morning at 10AM. You can find more information, and pictures, from her excellent diary on the march.

UPDATE: Timroff has a new diary on the finalized blogger meeting plans.

Before you make your sign, you need to decide what type of material your going to construct it out of. Unless you're going to be using carpentry skills, you basically have two options for poster size paper. The first would be poster paper that is card stock thickness and the other is foam core poster board that's about 1/4" thick and has a slight bend but cannot be rolled or folded. Both of these will be in the 22"x28" size, or close enough for gubmint work.  Please note, I'm not sure if foam core is the right term, but they are very light and sturdy.

My preference for protest sign making is the 1/4" stiff foam poster board. This is so much better than the poster paper that is like card stock because you can hold the sign up from the bottom without the need of tape or a cardboard tube to keep it sturdy. In fact, if you have the card stock type poster paper you'll definitely need to have some sort of support for it.

Another great reason for having a sturdy sign is being able to set it on the ground and lean it against your leg if you need to take a picture, grab something out of your backpack, or give Bush the finger as you pass the White House. I haven't seen the march route this year, but it was so empowering to pass in front of the White House in 2005. Here's a plug to the link for my photo gallery from the 2005 protest if you want to see what it was like.

The best reason for having a sturdy sign that can't be folded or rolled is that you get to show it off on your way to the march. As you make your way via mass transit and on foot lots of people will see your sign even though they aren't planning on attending the march.

Please note that sticks or similar items are not a good idear as you may be stopped by law enforcement for carrying these. The preferred method is to use a long cardboard tube similar to what is used for gift-wrapping paper.

Now that you've thought about what you're going to make your sign out of, you need to decide how big you want it to be. You don't have to carry a whole 22" x 28" sign. If you're short, you may want to keep the whole 28" height so people in the crowd can see it. But if you want something that isn't too unwieldy, you could cut your posterboard into sections that are 22" wide x 8.5" deep. This makes creating the poster a lot easier because you can print it on 8.5x11" paper. You then  paste two  sheets of paper to each side. Most of the PDF's I've attached below are set to print this way, although some of them will require the full 28" length of the poster board.

Also remember that your sign will be most visible to people BEHIND you as you're marching. There will be people sitting or standing along the route, and people looking backwards, who will see the front of your sign. But most visibility will be from behind so I recommend making a two-sided sign. If your sign is one-sided, or the front and back are different, then make sure you turn your sing around every now and then.

How will you make your protest sign? In my opnion, it's best for the sign to look home made. If it's too professional then people think it's astroturf. Sort of the way form letters are not given much weight by politicians. My favorite is to buy bright poster paint to paint the letters. I've also used markers and crayons would be an option too. I first use a pencil to draw the letters on the poster board and then paint over it. I'm not an artist so my stuff usually isn't too neat, but it still looks great cause 99.9% of the people are going to be too far away to see any detail.

If you're a crappy drawer like myself, then the other way is to buy some carbon paper (do they still make that?) and trace your words onto the poster board before painting it. This is super easy because you print in a huge 200 or 250 point font on 8.5x11" sheets of paper. Sandwich the carbon paper between the posterboard and your printed paper and then trace over the outline of the letters.

And if you are messy with paint like myself, another option is to print onto paper and then  glue the paper onto your posterboard. Again, I recommend a 200 or 250 point font as a minimum. The great thing about using paper, either to trace or to glue, is that you can easily make changes to the size and also print graphics to include on your sign.

Now to the fun stuff. What will your sign actually say? As mentioned above the fold,  Cowalker wrote a diary with slogan suggestions for signs and asking people to give their favorite slogans too. If you check out the diary and comments I'm sure you'll find something for your sign if you haven't thought of something already. My advice is to keep it short and sweet. The fewer the letters, the larger you can make the font, and the more people will be able to read it.

Since we're a Democratic blog, one of the things we need to do is send message to our legislators that there are a bunch of Democrats here marching against the Iraq war. I bet the DLC is whispering at this very moment that the anti-war crowd is made up of Greens and Communists. To that end, I've included the following graphics that you can print and paste on your protest sign. Most of these I scaled up from buttons I have over at my sorely neglected American Values Giftshop.  Below, you can download these graphics for free to  print for use on protest signs.

One note about the PDF's of these documents. The images, when printed, should overlap a little bit. That way you can trim the paper to get the edges to match exactly since the printer won't print to the edge of the paper. I'm travelling right now and don't have access to a printer to give them try so I hope they work OK. If someone wants to do a trial print and let me know, that would be great.  I'm guessing I won't have time to do anything major  before the march.

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Here are a couple of anti-war texts and a sample image to show you how you can scale something up to 8.5x11" to print and paste to sign.

Don't use this image as I have no idear who owns the copyright. Someone posted it in a comment on DK sometime over the last week.

Since we've got a lot of people on DK interested in impeachment, I've made the following three items available for download to include on your sign.

I'll try to check back every now and then to see if there are any suggestions for new downloads. But I'm packing most of the day and leaving for Washington around 5PM so I can't guarantee I'll have time to do anything more than respond to comments.

WE ARE DEMOCRATS!

PS, Tracy, the blogger over at the DNC blog said she would try to find any leftover Democratic signs or buttons and bring them Saturday morning to where the bloggers are going to meet before the march.