Stickers can enhance the design or packaging of your product without any complexities involved. They’re fun and also quite easy to use. You can utilize them for many different things. However, there are a lot of things to be considered when you’re creating sticker designs. Among them are the surface type, the adhesive or sticker paper used, and the material to be used for printing.
Simply put, stickers are pieces of printed material with adhesives on their back. They can be applied to different types of surfaces. Stickers can be used by an organization as a tool for labelling. In marketing, stickers can be a time-saving as well as cost-effective means of conveying vital information about a product.
They can also be used as embellishments or as tools to improve aesthetics. You can also use stickers as wall art and decals for the windows. Here’s how you can create custom sticker designs for printing:
1. Designing
This is the most crucial of all the stages involved in making stickers. You need to think about the design of the sticker you’re planning to print. If you already have an existing design such as a logo, you skip this step. There are many elements that you may need to think about if you don’t have an existing design.
Among them are colour, style of font, image, size, layout, and sticker shape. You can make this process a bit easier by finding inspiration and ideas from other brands.
2. Sticker materials
Before printing your sticker design, you’ll need to determine the surface of your sticker’s application. Once you’re clear on the type of surface, the next step would be to start researching the materials needed. You must choose the type of sticker paper and adhesive that are appropriate for the surface. Glossy papers are used as cheaper materials for the packaging of products.
Vinyl stickers are more durable, such as decals that are applied on outside surfaces. Matte finishing can add texture to your stickers. When it comes to adhesives, there are plenty of options to choose from. Some examples are permanent, high tack, removable, and static cling adhesives.
3. Method of printing
A standard printer can be used for printing simple one-off stickers. If you wish to go for top-quality designs and printing methods, there are specialized printing shops for this purpose. Depending on the type of printer that they use, you can choose a printing method. Some of these methods include flexographic printing, high-end and standard digital printing, and large format printing.
You might not be sure about the method of printing to be used. In such situations, specialized printing shops can be of great help. They’ll give you several options, which help you decide the right method for your sticker design.
4. Quality testing
After printing your sticker, you can check whether the quality of your stickers matches your expectations. Quality testing can help you determine whether the sticker turned out to be good in print. Sometimes, the colour may look off or the sticker would turn out to be too small.
In other cases, the print fades away after some time. There are also certain instances where the sticker peels off after applying. If there are any such faults, you’ll need to go back and make some of the necessary corrections.