sticker design tips

before you begin designing stickers…

Frequently stickers suffer and money is wasted due to people putting off designing stickers and ordering until “I needed them yesterday”. Production generally takes 3-7 days but you also need time to review sticker design tips & ideas, consider sticker manufacturer recommendations, and prepare optimized sticker designs.

What is your purpose for printing and designing stickers… building identity, advertising a specific event or product, pointing people to a web site…? Where do you ideally see the stickers being applied; to a car, to a helmet, to computers or equipment? How will you be distributing the custom 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 stickers – be as specific as possible. You don’t want to have finished stickers before you realize “oh no, it won’t fit in the envelope”, or “oh no, the adhesive isn’t holding the sticker designs on our equipment.”

How are other people in your industry designing stickers? Are they effectively using custom transfer decals as product, sticker postcards, fun die cut car stickers, or something else? What stickers aren’t being done that may be effective? What car stickers 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 designing stickers while still effectively tying in with other marketing efforts? How can you create a sticker designs that your customers are proud to display or will want to buy?

when designing stickers - some sticker design tips...

Promotional stickers need 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 – designing stickers with a simple clear logo, “headline” or graphic is best.

Large custom stickers don’t work for certain applications. The bigger the sticker design the easier to see, right? True, but a promotional sticker won’t be seen by anyone if it is never applied. Put big car sticker on your company vehicles or floor graphics but give customers a custom sticker that they are willing and apt to apply somewhere visible to the masses.

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 sticker designs that stands out and have a higher perceived value.

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.

Just because you are printing on white vinyl doesn’t mean the background of the sticker needs to be white. For a one color sticker design use a printed color as the background and knock out the copy white for more contrast and a more appealing custom designs.

If you are designing stickers on clear material for application to windows, it needs white ink! White reflects light (more visible) while darker colors are translucent and blend in with the dark window background. In my opinion, sticker designs on white vinyl are more visually effective than clear material 90% of the time. In many cases vinyl transfer decals or die cut stickers are an effective alternative to clear window sticker designs.

Depending on your purposes, custom 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 custom stickers with adhesive “on the face” for inside window applications. These have more limited applications, are harder to apply, and usually not necessary.

For more information about designing stickers and decals, valuable info and custom sticker design ideas, check out the free special report on Sticker Marketing which covers more on what promotional stickers can do for you, designing stickers, utilizing back copy, and producing & purchasing your stickers. Or, for the ultimate guide to marketing with stickers check out Jeff’s book; Stick This – Using Promotional Stickers To Build Identity, Create Word Of Mouth and Grow Sales

Share your rough sticker design ideas, logos, and goals with our Sticker Design Team here at Websticker. We can advise, offer ideas and get you pricing at no charge – Contact us. You are under no obligation to buy stickers from Websticker and will not be added to any mailing list.

💚💚 The good folks at the Norfork National Fish Hat