bierfaristo blogs

A couple of months ago, I had an idea. While I was at a protest, I realized that if I made some Esperanto-language signs and took them to a protest, it would make a great photo opportunity to post on flickr, or elsewhere. And it might also make a good theme for an article for the Esperanto media. So over my vacation, I spent a few hours building the resources necessary to make reasonably attractive Esperanto-language signs. I've got three signs (printed on one-side only so far), but I've gotten good enough at the process, that I could probably make 5-10 signs over a weekend. Below I describe the process I used.

I designed the stencil for the star using Inkscape I just made a star, put an "E" in the middle, and drew some narrow rectangles connecting the E with the body of the star. I printed it out on letter-sized paper, glued the paper to some cardboard (I used a file folder) and then used a box-cutter to cut out the pattern. (By using a file folder, I got two copies of the stencil, by cutting through both pieces at once). I also plan to use the stencils for making stars on sidewalks with spray-chalk as part of a guerilla marketing campaign.

I bought two helvetica stencil kits (for 3" and 4" letters) and some 20"x30" foam poster board panels. On one panel, I lightly traced in pencil the stencil of the words I wanted to use: "ESPERANTISTOJ", "KONTRA?", and "MILITO". With my box cutter, I carefully cut out the stenciled letters. It took some practice to get good at this and I'm still not convinced that the foam board is the best materials to use to make the stencils. But it worked acceptably well.

With the stencils, I used spray-paint to paint the signs. I experimented a bit with trying to mask the stencils, but found it to be more work than it was worth. By holding the spray can close to the surface, I didn't get much spray outside. And these are signs -- not some kind of work of art -- so a little mess doesn't really matter. The signs are perfectly legible and relatively attractive.

The total cost was around $30 to get set up (stencils, box-cutter, one sheet of foam board, and three cans of spray paint.) At less than $3/sheet of poster board, I can know make a few signs for any event I can get people to attend. I'll follow up when we've attended a protest. Alisa warned that the signs look too war-like -- she says they look like I'm recruiting for the Esperanto milita. We'll have to see what people think.