I have until Friday morning to make a bumper sticker. I can do all the artwork and layout (couple simple vector images substituting for letters), but need to have it printed and delivered by Friday AM. Budget isn’t unlimited, but don’t mind paying a premium for rush (especially with the holiday) or quality.
Does Amazon have something I can put in a standard inkjet? I’d think unless it came with a laminate cover I’d be wasting money. Can I print out a regular image and then use clear contact paper over it? Don’t care about permanency; it’s never coming off. There are a host of mail-order sites, but never having experience with this I can’t tell which will pump out a crapulent quick-print over which will last.
Or does Staples or the like have that as a service?
I’m not sure how much it’ll be for a one off thing, but any sign making shop (that works with vinyl) should be able to do it for you. For example, FastSigns might be able to do it, if they can’t a Mom & Pop sign shop probably can.
Otherwise there’s I’m sure there’s plenty of custom sticker places on the internet, just find the one with the fastest turn around time. The only problem with those ones is that they’ll probably have high minimums.
Look for a large-format graphics shop rather than a “sign shop,” if you can find one in your area. But any shop that can print on calendared vinyl should be able to print out a couple of your bumper stickers on a minimum job size (typically two square feet or so) or even tack your strip along the edge of another job. Search for “trade show graphics” and the like.
Sign shops, not to put too fine a point on it, tend to be idiots who were trained for three days on how to run a couple of expensive leased machines, and don’t actually know anything about design, graphics, implementation etc. They won’t want to go outside their limited comfort zone of doing a cookie-cutter, template-based SIGN for you.
After the Deer Creek “riot” July 2nd 1995 my friend and I bolted back to St Louis (home base) and printed a run of “Fence Jumpers SUCK” stickers at another friends small brew pub. We used waterproof beer labels and a inkjet. Six to a sheet of standard 8 ½ x 11 precut label paper.
They were widely popular and got us to Chicago for the final two shows…
I’ve used special bumper sticker paper from Office Max, and have gotten great results. It came in a package of six 8.5x11 sheets, and they last for years.
Holy hell will you get a kick out of the sticker in mind (double points if you’re an XKCD fan). During the summers we take Fest Vanto at least one music festival a month plus a few one-offs. That’s been severely limited this year, but we just got news that we’re likely heading to the String Cheese/Twiddle show next Friday, hence the rush. This is a quick conceptual mock-up; I’ll be asking in Cafe/IMHO for feedback once it’s close to final.
I’ve done a couple things. Put “printer near location” into Google and got a very small number of places. Their threadbare pages seem to suggest they’re large-run shops, but will be calling them on Tuesday morning nonetheless. Found a ton of printers on the Internet, but can’t tell the difference between a guy with a printer in his closet from an established business — or whether going with the closet-guy is perfectly fine for this. That is, I’m sure I could get something that will last for a trip or two, but want this to last as long as the other decorations; a ‘not fade away’ sort of thing
Do you mean something like thisor this? We have a run of the mill middling ink-jet printer. How will those inks on the paper hold up to the elements? Were your stickers on vehicles or in a more controlled environment?
More like the second, though it was the Office Max brand. I made them on my crappy ink jet, for the 2004 Presidential election, and sold some on eBay. I sprayed them lightly with clear acrylic sealant, put one on my own car, and it held up unfaded for several months. After W won the election I tore it off in disgust, so I don’t know how long it would have lasted.
