Pick the sign type
House Name Plate, Shop Sign, Office Sign, Door Number and Desk Name Plate Makers carry the defaults for size, letter height and mounting for each use. Nameplate Maker is the general version.
Signage · 11 tools
Name plates and signs
House, shop, office, door and desk name plates, logo and raised-letter signs, layered signs with backings and mounting holes.
A sign is text with a reading distance, a mounting method and a material, and the three decide each other. A house name read from the gate at ten metres needs letters around 60 mm tall; a desk plate read from a chair needs 20 mm. A shop board on standoffs needs holes clear of the edge; a door plate on tape does not. Acrylic letters need strokes wider than the sheet thickness; vinyl letters on a board do not.
The sign makers here start from the sign type, apply those rules, and produce the lettering, the backing and the holes as a set of layers. The customer gets a preview at scale from the mockup tools; the fabricator gets a DXF with cut, engrave and drill layers named.
Try it here
House Name Plate Maker
House names and numbers on a plate.
How a signage job runs
Set the text and logo
Text in any script, shaped correctly. Logo Sign Maker adds an SVG or traced logo beside or above the text with a set gap.
Build the layers
Raised Letter Sign Maker separates letters from a base plate; Layered Sign Generator stacks two or three offsets; Sign Backing Generator draws the backing with corner radius.
Add mounting and export
Mounting Hole Generator places standoff, screw or keyhole slots at the right margin. Export DXF with layers, and a preview image for the customer.
All signage tools
11 tools · House, shop, office and desk name plates with mounting holes.Nameplate MakerName plates with plate shape and holes.House Name Plate MakerHouse names and numbers on a plate.Shop Sign MakerBold shop names with backing.Office Sign MakerDoor and desk signage.Door Number MakerLarge door numbers on a plate.Desk Name Plate MakerDesk plates with name and title.Logo Sign MakerBacking plate around a logo SVG.Raised Letter Sign MakerLetters and backing exported as separate layers.Layered Sign GeneratorMulti-layer sign with offsets.Sign Backing GeneratorA backing shape offset from any design.Mounting Hole GeneratorAdd mounting holes to a plate.
On the machine
Letter height by distance
About 25 mm of capital height for every 10 m of reading distance for good legibility, 25 mm per 5 m for reading at a glance in traffic. A shop fascia read from across a street therefore needs 100 to 150 mm letters.
Mounting
Standoffs for acrylic and metal composite over 300 mm; VHB tape for plates under 300 mm on smooth walls; screws through counter-sunk holes for MDF and wood. Holes at least 15 mm from any edge.
Materials by place
Outdoors: cast acrylic, aluminium composite, or exterior-grade vinyl on a composite board. Indoors: MDF, acrylic, brass-look acrylic, vinyl on glass. Door and desk plates: 3 mm acrylic with a 5 mm backing.
Spacing
Sign lettering needs looser tracking than print; the makers add 5 to 8 percent letter spacing by default, and 10 percent on all-capital Latin text.
What usually goes wrong
- Letters too small for the distance. Apply the height rule before picking the material.
- Mounting holes in the letters instead of the backing. Holes go in the plate.
- A logo traced from a website favicon. Ask for the vector logo or trace a large clean version.
- Script text with unjoined letters on a raised-letter sign. Every unjoined letter is a separate part to align on the wall.
- Forgetting the mirror for a sign applied inside glass. Use the inside-glass tool from the sticker group.
Common questions
Can I make a bilingual sign?
Yes. Set the primary text in one script and the secondary in another; each is shaped correctly and the maker aligns them on a shared baseline or stacks them.
What does the fabricator receive?
A DXF at 1:1 with layers for letters, backing, engrave and drill, plus the SVG. The preview image goes to the customer for sign-off.
How do raised letters attach?
Studs or VHB tape on the back of each letter; the Raised Letter Sign Maker exports a drilling template for stud positions aligned with the backing plate.
Are house numbers a different tool?
Door Number Maker sets numerals with the right height for a door or gate, in Latin or Arabic-Indic digits, with an optional plate.