August 9 - A picture of the finished green and grey scarf. It's finished length is 8 feet, including the fringe. The model is my niece. I scaled the chart down, so the charts below are no longer accurate. The blue scarf's lettering will be even smaller. This scarf says "VOTE GIANT SQUID" down one side, and has "'04" on the other.
New! A detail of the most recent scarf, which is green and grey/black. 
Graphs for the lettering, if you want to replicate what I will be doing
I've made a swatch with the yarn I will be using and my dimensions are 4.5 stitches and 5.7 rows to the inch (using a US#5 needle). The chart I made is based upon those proportions.
The chart is in several colors to make it easier to read. The lettering is in blue and I delineated the boundaries of the lettering with a yellow line. The yellow line is just to make it easier to read the chart, it is not meant to be knitted as a separate color. Also, the graphs appear side by side on the chart. This was just to keep the chart to one page. They are meant to run as one long motto down one end of a scarf.
I've placed one row, or less, between the letters. I may, on actually knitting it, decide that they need to be separated by 2 rows. Adding a row is simple enough, since the letters are knit one by one. Also, the words are separated by 5 rows, with 2004 separated by 7. This is flexible as well.
Note that the lettering on the chart is perpendicular to the row! This is because I intend on knitting the scarf along the short edge. Two ways of telling which way the chart should go: the stitches are wider than they are tall so the graph cells should look wider than they are tall; if you can read the words without turning your head sideways, you are holding it wrong.
The letters as I have charted them are 14 stitches tall (since they are sideways). This is just over 3 inches, which should look well when centered on a 7 inch wide scarf. I am planning to make striped scarves, with the 2004 at the fringe end rather than VOTE. msg me if you have any questions!
This is a small scale chart that will fit on one 8.5x11 sheet of paper. 109K.