Contol Panel Art

[TomJBart]

G'Day all,

Can someone tell me how they are making their control panel art ??   I have a design produced in Adobe Illustrator but:

1. What do I get it printed on ?? Vinyl ??
2. Where do I get it printed ??
3. How do I protect it from wearing ??  Clear varnish ??
4. Any ideas how much its going to cost ??  Australian Dollars ??

Any help would be great !!!

[TalkingOctopus]

1.  I got mine printed on normal paper and used lexan to cover it.  The color is tends to be slightly washed out on vinyl - but either works fine.  
2.  I had mine printed up at Kinko's but I don't know if those exist in Australia.  Try local copy shops.
3. You can use lexan or  clear contact paper.  I prefer the lexan/plexigalls route. I am not sure if varnish would be a good idea, especially with normal paper.
4. My control panel is a large 4 player one and it costed 42 US dollars.

Good luck

[zero-one]

You know, I've been hanging around here for 9 months now and I've never seen a good answer to questions 1 and 2.

I want my control panel overlay to look authentic. I want it printed on vinyl just like the real control panels. Alas, it seems it can't be done by amateurs.

A lot of people get their artwork printed on quality paper at a local print shop and put a plexiglass/lexan/lucite sheet on top of it to protect it.

[grafixmonkey]

Are you putting it under plexiglass or lexan?  If so, shop around for a good large format printing company, and take it to them in whatever format they like.  Photoshop is a good format, it lets you specify the dimensions of the print job within your saved file, to pretty exact proportions.  From there, I laid the artwork down on top of my panel and used an exacto-knife to cut button holes.

BTW, if you're doing large format printing, GET SAMPLES before you print!  I tried Kinko's thinking they'd have good quality prints, but when I saw the sample I was literally counting ink dots at arm's length.  They had 6-year-old large format color printing technology.  I went to a local place called Dean's Blueprinting and got it done on a brand new 1440 DPI spool printer, on better paper, for the same price.

Oh yeah and when you print, leave a border around your actual artwork that matches your case color...  or continue the artwork pattern...  cuz I thought I had the dimensions exactly right, but now have a little tiny band of white showing on one side.

[TomJBart]

I am doing a cab conversion, so the orginal control panel has a piece of white acrylic with some paint on it.... very crap looking !!  I what hoping to simply stick something over the top of that, then seal it somehow ??

What is Lexan ??  It is like clear contact (for covering books)

Is the general consensus to get it printed on good quality paper and then cover it with something, either Lexan or Plexiglass (acrylic)??  Won't Plexiglass scratch easily ?? I know acrylic does !!

[Carsten Carlos]

Lexan is somehow similiar to Plexi - the great benefit is that it doesn't break when drilled!

It get's scratched easily though. As far as I know, you can print durable on self-adhesive vinyl - ask your local copy or signshops, they should know. Vinyl would be the most authentic one, but the more durable pigment ink needed for this material is more expensive.

I've choosen lexan as I could make my prints for free at work. You could use glossy paper, but most likely you would see wet-looking spots around black areas, so better is to use thick normal paper and then laminate it for maximal protection.

[Lilwolf]

btw, some have done it at home on a good inkjet printer under lexan.

Not as nice... more work lining it up... Making sure you have a good program that will stretch them evenly between pages... but it's doable.   But not the best solution.

But if you are creating a ton of hotswap control panels.  You might want to just do it this way to make it easier on yourself.  Then upgrade later.

[hubster]

This is what I did for my control panel art.  

I bought a bundle of old GENERIC marquee at a coin-op auction (somebody was bootlegging boards in the early 80's in ky) .  Drilled holes it them and I was done.  They are made out of plexiglass and they already have art on the under side.  

Of course you have do like the graphics that are on them (In my case: Tank Battalion, Lady Bug, Spiders, Phoniex, Spy Agent, some rabbit on a airplane game, etc..)  

I have a small control panel (Old dig-dug cabnet) so some of these marquees where the exact size that I needed.  A big 4 player panel might be hard to fine a marquee big enought.  But if you have a small control panel think about using a marquee.  

(P.S.  Someone will probably flame you if you use a marquee from a classic game, remember I used BOOTLEGG marquees)

[Frostillicus]

I always recommend to get it printed on regular paper and laminate it.  Good protection, brings out the colors, and blocks harmful UV light.  Covering with Lexan is good idea in addition to that.

[Chris]

btw, some have done it at home on a good inkjet printer under lexan.

Not as nice... more work lining it up... Making sure you have a good program that will stretch them evenly between pages... but it's doable.   But not the best solution.

This isn't so bad if you can use 11x17 or banner paper.  I'm on my third CP for my cabinet, so I'm happy I didn't spend a ton on printing overlays!

--Chris