Leave enough time
LFrequently sticker designs suffer and money is wasted due to people putting off the custom sticker design and ordering until “I need them yesterday”. Production generally takes 3-7 days but you also need time to review design ideas, consider sticker manufacturer recommendations, and prepare optimized sticker designs.
what are your sticker promotional goals
What is your purpose for designing and printing stickers… building identity, advertising a specific event or product, pointing people to a web site…? Where do you ideally see the custom stickers being applied; to a car, to a helmet, to computers or equipment? How will you be distributing the stickers; in the mail, as a hand out at trade shows or special events, included with products, sold as a product itself…? Your answers will affect the designing of your custom stickers – be as specific as possible. You don’t want to have finished promotional stickers before you realize “oh no, it won’t fit in the envelope”, or “oh no, the adhesive isn’t holding the stickers on our equipment.”
look around and research most effective stickers
What are other people in your industry using for custom promotional stickers? Are they effectively using custom transfer decals as product, sticker postcards, fun die-cut car stickers, or something else? What isn’t being done that may be effective? What car sticker designs do you see out on the highway, at trade shows, or selling well on-line – why are they there – why do they work (or not work)? How can you do something powerful and unique with sticker design while still effectively tying in with your other marketing efforts? How can you create a custom badge/sticker that your customers are proud to display or will want to buy?
keep designs simple!
Sticker designs needs to convey a message quickly, clearly, and often from a distance. Beware of small details, intricate graphics, and more than one simple message/image. Stickers are not newspaper ads. View them as very small billboards – design a sticker with a clear logo, “headline” or graphic.
bigger isn’t always better
Large custom stickers don’t work for certain applications. The bigger the sticker the easier to see, right? True, but a custom promotional sticker won’t be seen by anyone if it is never applied. Put big car sticker designs on your company vehicles but give customers a sticker that they are willing and apt to apply somewhere visible to the masses.
consider die-cutting stickers
A sticker’s visual appeal and impact is substantially increased when designs are cut to shape (something other than a square or rectangle). Circles and ovals are commonly used for sticker designs and often have no added cost, and any custom shape is possible with die cutting. A die is usually well worth any possible added charges for creating unique custom stickers that stands out and have a higher perceived value.
consider back copy - printing on the back of your stickers
If you are designing a promotional sticker, why waste the blank space on the back of the stickers or decals? Use printing on the back of stickers for advertising, coupons, news, postcard copy, coop ads… any information you want to get into the hands (and minds) of your prospects and/or customers.
think in reverse
Just because you are printing on white vinyl doesn’t mean the background of the sticker needs to be white. For a one color decal design or car sticker design use a printed color as the background and leave the copy white for more contrast and a more appealing design.
make sticker designs clear?
If you are designing a sticker on clear material for application to windows, it needs white ink! White reflects light (more visible) while darker colors are translucent and blend with the dark window background. In my opinion, sticker designs on white vinyl are more visually effective than clear material in 90% of the cases. In many cases vinyl transfer decals or die cut stickers are an effective alternative to clear window stickers.
How Sticky Do You Want 'em?
Depending on your purposes, stickers can come with ultra-removable adhesive on up to a super aggressive adhesive. Static decals have no adhesive - although for the added price, and limited applications, these are seldom necessary. We also do not recommend stickers with adhesive "on the face" for inside window applications. These have more limited applications, are harder to apply, and usually not necessary.
