[coldtea]

>I think 90% of the work is the design effort for each sign, a vinyl plotter won't make that faster.

There wouldn't be any need for "design" if management was involved to expedite the process. Just put the ready made letters together with a couple of ready made vectors like arrows etc in a PC program, and send the file to the plotter.

>Also, a vinyl plotter and computer take up space and need a secure room.

You could order the sign from a print shop with a vinyl plotter and have it delivered in 1-2 hours.

[needle0]

To get each of the signs officially signed off with formal budgets and professional designers allocated, I would imagine the administrative red tape involved (in a large, old Japanese enterprise) would take long enough to make the sign obsolete by the time it got the OK from everyone. Sato just keeps making signs on the spot where he notices a need for them, and rips them off when they're no longer necessary.

[coldtea]

>To get each of the signs officially signed off with formal budgets and professional designers allocated, I would imagine the administrative red tape involved

You don't need to get "each of the signs officially signed off with formal budgets and professional designers allocated".

You could expedite his current process, with just a series of templates made on an el cheapo design program (even Word) and a vinyl cutter.

Here's a guy making custom signs nobody asked for. Why would a replacement for that include "formal budgets and professional designers"? One could leverage the same informal process and budget, and instead of duct tape and lots hours, just use a run-of-the-mill printing service (the kind that does photocopies)...

>Sato just keeps making signs on the spot where he notices a need for them, and rips them off when they're no longer necessary.

Sure, and that's just "write message, add arrows/icons, sent to plotter, stick, unstick" -- the same as today, minus the time to painfully create by hand.

Of course this way you also lose the artisty and quirkiness, but I'm only responding to whether this can be done.

And my answer is: it can be done, cheaper, faster, easier, and doesn't take much. Not any big budget (not much better than the duct tape budget), not "professional designers", nothing. You could keep the same unoficialness, and just use a printer and a PC to get the signs (you could even skip the plotter, and just e.g. stick A3/A2 signs with tape).

As for whether it should be done, I'd say no. His efforts, even if wasteful, make the world better and more quirky and charming, in a way that an automated replacement wouldn't.

[nzjrs]

I feel like this comment must me a satire of HN?

[kirstenbirgit]

It's funny you mention this. Certain personality types just have a hard time understanding stuff like this. I guess it's due to being ultra-rational or maybe slightly autistic.

Reminds me of one of my coworkers. Extremely intelligent software dev. Take him to an art museum and nothing will interest him. Put some music on that's not in his genre and he'll always put on his headphones instead of trying to listen to something new. But start talking about one of his interests, and he'll carry the conversation forever. He just has a hard time understanding why other humans do what they do and like what they like, because he doesn't.

[lowdose]

I think we all have him as colleague.

[kmnt]

whats seems satirical about this? most construction companies just buy coroplast signs, I used to make them its why I was surprised hes spending hours on this as the article states.

[mattl]

It’s completely disrespectful to the artistry of the work.

It’s the same thing as that original response to Dropbox.

“For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.”

[coldtea]

>It’s completely disrespectful to the artistry of the work.

It's not about the artistry and never intended to be, it's about the end result (functionality wise) and whether you can get it for less effort. (In fact, I've less several other comments lauding the artistry aspect, e.g. notice my comment posted an hour before yours above:

"Sure. I prefer the uniqueness, and quirkiness myself. It's something different than the usual industrial approach. But I'm just responding to people who saying it couldn't be done in another way (have they ever been involved with sign making? of course it could) or that it wont save time to have it done another way, or that it would cost more...")

[nzjrs]

Literally no one thinks this can't be done another (automated) way. This is HN! This is a beautiful post about a true craftsman in another domain, as is appreciated here, and you really think no one has heard of laser cutters? We all know this.

Insight is also about calibrating ones response to the audience.

[kmnt]

I think what is being reacted to though is that its being done in a business context. Construction companies do not typically value good graphic design or hand lettering. This is stomped out for efficiency, cheap coroplast and vinyl wayfinding signs are quickly churned out and discarded. Sato's signs are surprising to me because he hasn't been displaced.

[HeWhoLurksLate]

People do think this can be automated- I do. The issue is that some commenters are putting down manual labor while somebody is doing something that benefits the greater population of their town.

[coldtea]

What exactly feels like satire to you? As your comment is content-less I can't tell.

This is how thousands of small businesses and organizations the world over produce signs. What seems bizarre to you?

[rfrey]

It seems like satire because the story isn't, even on the surface, about the need for signs in subway stations. It's about a dedicated employee who, performing what many would consider a menial job, displayed care and dedication to his job and in the process revealed himself as something of a design savant.

Saying "but you can print signs for $50" is so wilfully blind to what makes this story charming that it seems like a parody of the literalness and complete lack of romance that one sometimes sees in HN comments.

[sowbug]

It's the legendary 2007 Dropbox comment but with plotters instead of FTP.

[coldtea]

Hmm, is the above supposed to be satire itself?

The Dropbox comment was about a startup making cross platform desktop/mobile sync easy, and a facile dismissal about being able to hack something similar together with FOSS tools which missed both the complexity of the domain and the main point which was convenience for the average Joe.

This is about a guy making subway signs for route changes and other such situations with duct tape working for half a day or more to produce one, and a suggestion that the same job could be more easily have been done much faster (and at a similar cost) with some desktop software (even Word would do it) and a plotter or a simpler laser printer.

The second suggestion is not just not outlandish, but also how such signs are done in tons of businesses and organizations all around the world.

Dropbox case: Complex domain, difficult to simplify, main selling point being "works out of the box" -> Suggestion of a nerdy, ad-hoc process, that needs elaborate setup maintenance

This case: Trivial domain, done in a labor intensive personal manner with lots of needless manual labor -> Suggestion of a much simpler, most common way businesses/orgs do it

You could argue that doing it with printing misses the quirkiness, personal touch, uniqueness of the process, and I totally agree.

But not that this process can't be automated and replaced with a simple PC+printing for less manual labor and low cost.

I've done it for a couple organizations I've worked at, and it's trivial. You can print black and white A0 and larger signs for a dollar (and color for $10 depending on size, up to A0 which is 33.1 x 46.8 in).

In fact the whole point of the article about this Tokyo subway guy, is that it's a unique case because this (duct tape and hours of manual labour) is NOT the way such things are usually done.

[asutekku]

But the thing is that everyone knows it can be done cheaper and faster, it’s not a surprise to anyone.

But mentioning that such action exists in an article about craftsmanship comes out as discrediting their work. No matter how one says it.

[VRay]

I'm sorry man, but this tape sign guy is a fucking idiot and all the hubbub is retarded too

He's using the wrong tools to poorly do a menial job slowly. If you can't see that, I don't know what's wrong with you

Maybe next week there'll be an article about a dedicated salaryman who masterfully scrubs trains with a toothbrush

[zorak]

seriously...it's like the HN Drinking Game in here

[mrob]

But then you wouldn't get the free publicity from all the people interested in your unique hand-made signs.

[coldtea]

Sure. I prefer the uniqueness, and quirkiness myself. It's something different than the usual industrial approach.

But I'm just responding to people who saying it couldn't be done in another way (have they ever been involved with sign making? of course it could) or that it wont save time to have it done another way, or that it would cost more...