When laying out my design I like to leave a pretty good size boarder in case I need to square my material to the pictures being carved. I then select the depth of cut and decide if I will be using a two staged cut for detail. To determine this I hit the show tool paths button.
60 minutes
After it is all carved I will take this sign to trim and square it on the table saw. After that I am going to paint the letters and background to my liking.