Even though the nursery has a long way to go and will be under construction while we install new floors in the coming weeks, continually collecting and adding pieces is still a priority. Furniture and fixtures are on their way! I recently added a huge DIYed typographic piece to the otherwise bare room that was easy and cheap to make and I’m pretty smitten with the 30 minute project outcome:
I was inspired by this framed giant letter, but put my own twist on it. I already had the largest 28×40 Ribba frame in an aluminum finish sitting in a closet. I refreshed it with a few layers of gold spray paint and left the mat behind so the letters would be a full bleed in the frame.
The print itself is actually an “engineer print”–which is a large format black and white print on butcher paper, basically. The best part about these prints is they are very cheap. Our local print place, Alphagraphics (I know that Staples and some Fed Ex locations do similar engineer prints) has three different sizes for engineer prints 18×24 ($1.25), 24×36 ($2.25), or a 30×42 ($3.25). Since my Ikea frame was just smaller than 30×42, I went for that size. Like I said, I wanted the letters to fill the entire frame width-wise, so I mocked up a comparable paper size in illustrator and played with some typography until I was happy with it. Since my frame was 2″ narrower in width, I made sure to account for that, too.
I ended up using classic Helvetica in bold and moved the letters a little closer together. I also changed the opacity of the black to 78% so it wouldn’t be too stark for the rest of the nursery.
Four dollars later, we have our first piece of personalized art on the walls–and it’s huge! I’m not sure where in the room it will actually end up, but over the crib is definitely a contender. If you don’t already have this large frame on hand (about $24) or the spray paint (about $6), this project would cost a little more, but I love the way it turned out. It’s chic and sweet for a nursery, but could definitely go anywhere in a home, don’t you think?
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OH I know why I sized down now – the 24×36 size in Illustrator won’t let me make the font any bigger than around 1200. And the 750 size you had here in your screenshot is small and doesn’t fit the whole area/paper. So I made a smaller work space to have the font fill the whole space. Obviously this didn’t work. Not sure why our projects aren’t turning out the same in Illustrator but I’m not expert in it.
I’ll keep trying!
Hi there – saw this wonderful post online and decided to recreate it. I followed your instructions almost exactly and they didn’t turn out AT ALL. I uploaded them as a PDF to Staples online and the result was very different. The ink on the letters came out so sparse it looks like they’re plaid print. When you did your project, did you take a file directly to the print place in person? Were there any other instructions you gave them? I’m thinking its possible mine didn’t turn out because of the poor quality of the file and that it was done online. Any more details would be helpful because I’d like to try again!
I did mine online, too! It could be your size wasn’t large enough. Did you make it AT LEAST as big as you wanted it printed?
Thank you for your response! Size sounds like it could be the issue! I did as you did and made an area in Illustrator the size of the frame – opened up a new file and the size I made in inches (24 x 36 in my case) instead of points or pixels BUT I sized down to fit the screen size which now that I’m trying this again I don’t know why I did. Going back to start a new one in real 24×36 inches and trying again!
Did you upload a PDF, JPG or something else?
[…] 6. Typography […]
[…] Print out some large letters for a modern and chic look. They’ll go in any room, even in the nursery, and instantly make the space look that much more contemporary and sleek. {found on chrislovesjulia} […]