We have been designing stickers here at digital design and printing company ZEROPIXEL for over thirty years. Our team collaborated in a way that inspired our teammates to serve better with sticker printing services at that time. We have created over 10,000 different sticker designs for businesses around Pakistan.
You must be thinking that we can come up with so many ideas for custom service stickers for multiple customer needs. Well, we here at ZEROPIXEL normally start with an idea for a collection theme. We start with broad and general thematic chemistry.
For example, let’s say we want to make stickers that are birthday-pertaining. We imagine that idea to design for the activities or ideas for birthdays. Our theme chemistry leads us to pertaining chemistry, such as birthday hats, balloons, cakes, candles, etc.
Where to Start Designing Custom Stickers?
Once we have some ideas, we will go over them on my iPad and start using Procreate to draw out my designs. If we are confident in my design ideas, we always use a square 3080 pixels x 3080 pixels at 300 DPI.
Page assist is always turned on so that we can do multiple designs on the same piece of art and reference.
Following this, we use the same color palette for each design idea we want to draw. The last thing we will do before we begin to paint is to turn off the background.
Complete the Design Process
Now, with all the settings done, you can work on completing the designs. This is when we do all the line work and coloring. If the design has text, sometimes we will also use Canva because it’s easier to manipulate the text there.
Carefully Prepare For Cutting
Once the sticker has an outline, you will AirDrop it to my MacBook as a PNG so the background will stay transparent. Once your design files have been transferred, you must open the Cricut Design Space and open a new canvas by clicking the three lines in the top left corner and selecting “canvas.”
Dimensions and Scale
A brand-new canvas should appear, and the first thing you always do is create a square shape and change the dimensions to 6.75 by 9.25. This square will act as a workable area guide since the Cricut will not accept anything outside these dimensions.
Steps to Input and Output Feeds
Upload the File
Here, you can import your designs by clicking “Upload.” A new screen will appear, and we will click “Upload Image.” You can drag and drop or browse for your files, but we will drag and drop since your designs are in your Downloads file.
Editing Scenarios
Here, you will select “Complex” because you feel that this option helps retain the quality of the design. Now, we can click “Continue.” Here’s where you can remove the background if you have one, but since we turned off the background in Procreate and uploaded a PNG with a transparent background, we don’t have to do anything. We can click “Apply” and “Continue.”
Arrange the Design Process
We will select “Print then Cut” on this page since we want the designs to be printed and cut. Finally, click “Upload.” You can repeat this process with all my designs, and once they’re all uploaded, you can select them all and add them to my canvas simultaneously. The designs usually appear very large, so you must ensure all are selected and size them down to make them more workable.
Print the Stickers in the Printer
Now you can click on “Make It” in the top right corner, and it will show a preview of how everything will look while printing Stickers or business cards. Once everything looks fine, click “Continue.”
Now, we come to the print and cut settings screen. The first thing we’re going to do is click “Send to Printer.” You will turn off “Add Bleed” on this pop-up because it’s usually a hit or miss for me.
You will turn on “Use System Dialog” because you want to pick the printer settings manually and not use the default ones. Then click “Print.”
Offset Printing Mode
The Cricut Design Space will minimize the big view, and you’ll need to find your system’s dialog window to adjust the printer settings. If this is your first time printing, this part might be the most annoying (at least it was for me). So, we will make it easier for you.
ZEROPIXEL has procured the Epson EcoTank 2050 in our sticker printing services shop. Our quality inspection experts use Online Label Sticker Paper for remote customer services.
We will portray you in the settings that we opt for the best results, through which you can discover trial and error.
Find Print Settings
Under printer options, we start with “Print Settings” and change the media type to “Premium Photo Paper Glossy” and the print quality to “Best Quality.” The last thing I change is under “Color Options,” where I select “Manual Setting” and go to “Advanced Setting” to adjust the contrast and colors for offset printing to 10.
Cut the Stickers as Per the Shape
Once the settings are adjusted and printing is done, we can cut. Place the printed sheet onto the mat, aligning it with the top left corner. I’ll then use a squeegee to secure the sheet to the mat.
Next, you can take a laminating sheet and cut it down to size to fit within the black registration lines. If we go over them, the Cricut might have difficulty reading the marks and could miscut the designs or not cut them at all.
How ZEROPIXEL Offers Best Sticker Printing Services
We use a technique to laminate by peeling off the tab at the top of the sheet and lining it up with the top designs within the registration marks of door hangers or any other design. We then fold a small section of the backing and smooth down that small bit of laminating sheet. It squeezes across the sticker paper to remove any air bubbles.
Finally, load the mat into the Cricut, ensure the mat is properly fed into the machine, and press “Go.” A full page of stickers takes about a minute to cut.
Once the cutting is complete, I can unload the mat, remove the excess sticker paper from around the designs, and then remove the individual stickers by curving the mat so the stickers pop off more easily without curling.
Finishing Touches
At this point, QA team ZEROPIXEL inspects the stickers for any miscuts. Since a Cricut isn’t a perfect machine, if our team notices that some stickers don’t meet my quality standards of customer service stickers, we will calibrate the machine and update its firmware.
It helps resolve most issues and meet the best expectations of our sticker printing services. In case of any miscut stickers, we end up collecting and storing them at a discount price later on in our sticker service company.
