Custom Die-Cut Stickers for Brentwood, New York

A band with a run of shows booked is usually the one placing an order like this, and what they are trying to get done is simple: put something on the merch table that costs less per piece than a shirt, carries the logo, and does not need a size chart or a fitting room. Small labels go about it the same way with more names to cover, buying one batch per artist so every act on the roster has something to hand across the table. Either way the job begins with a drawing somebody already owns and ends with a few hundred small shapes cut to the outline of it.

Not much can go wrong in between. You choose a shape, you choose how many inches across it runs, you choose a quantity, and the price falls out of those three things.

When a poster logo becomes a two inch object

Most band artwork was drawn to be read from across a room. Shrink it to something that fits on a laptop lid and the thin parts close up, the outline turns busy, and lettering that looked confident at poster size collapses into a smudge. Open the file and ask what is still legible at the size you actually want.

Die cut means the cut follows the artwork rather than sitting in a rectangle around it. A circle, a shield, a lightning bolt, a cassette outline, the silhouette of your own lettering: those are all cuts we can make. What the shape needs is a little margin between the ink and the cut, so the outline has somewhere to land. If your logo carries a hairline tail or a thin dangling serif, it is usually better to sit the artwork on a simple outer form than to chase every notch of the drawing.

Send the largest version of the file you have. Working down from something big is easy. Working up from a small screenshot is not.

Paying by the square inch

Price is per square inch of the sticker, and the rate per inch falls as the count climbs. At one to twenty four pieces it is 35 cents. From twenty five to forty nine it is 30 cents. From fifty to ninety nine it is 28 cents. From one hundred to two hundred and forty nine it is 26 cents. From two hundred and fifty to four hundred and ninety nine it is 24 cents. At five hundred it is 22 cents.

The useful consequence for a band in Brentwood is that the size of the sticker matters as much as the count. A tall narrow design and a squat wide one with the same area cost the same, and adding an inch in both directions moves the figure a long way, because you pay for area rather than for how complicated the outline is.

There is an order minimum, though it works as a qualifying line rather than a price floor. An order counts once it reaches ten pieces or ten dollars of merchandise, whichever comes first.

The point where two hundred turns into two hundred and fifty

Here is the arithmetic on a common size. A two by three inch sticker is six square inches. Order two hundred of them and you sit in the 26 cent band, so each sticker is $1.56 and the two hundred come to $312.00. Order two hundred and fifty of that same sticker and the rate steps down to 24 cents, which makes each one $1.44 and the whole batch $360.00.

So the total goes up and the per piece figure goes down at the same time. A batch that looked generous in the box has a way of looking thin by the third show, so if you are hovering near the top of a band, price both sides of the line before you decide.

Ten miles out, and five neighbours inside four

Brentwood sits 10.0 miles south east of our shop in a straight line, in Suffolk County, in the Township of Islip, under the 11717 ZIP code. Everything we print and cut happens at 205 East Main Street in Huntington, and local pickup there costs nothing.

What stands out about the place, from where we sit, is how tightly the surrounding coverage packs in. North Bay Shore is 1.5 miles away. Baywood is 2.6. Central Islip is 3.3, Deer Park is 3.7, and Bay Shore is 3.9. Every one of those five nearest neighbours falls inside 3.9 miles. Bands rarely live at one address. The drummer is one place, the person who designed the logo is another, and the box has to land somewhere sensible. When the whole group sits inside a few miles of each other, that spread stops being a logistics problem and turns into a single decision about where to send it.

Four people who order this way

The band on its first proper run of shows. You have a logo, you have a date, and you want something to put in front of people who have never heard the name. A small sticker is the one merch item you can give away without thinking about it, which is exactly what makes it travel.

The small label with a roster. You are not ordering one design, you are ordering four or five, and the rate is worked out on each design separately rather than on the pile as a whole. Plan the split with that in mind, because two designs at two hundred each land in a different band than one design at four hundred.

The solo artist with one record out. Your order is small on purpose and you do not want to be told to buy five hundred of anything. The minimum is ten pieces or ten dollars of merchandise, so a modest count is a real option rather than a favour.

The person who books and runs the shows. You are ordering on behalf of a night rather than an act, and the sticker carries the name of the series. The same pricing and the same question about legibility apply.

Questions we get asked

What does a two by three inch sticker cost if my Brentwood band orders two hundred of them? Six square inches at the 26 cent rate, which is $1.56 per sticker and $312.00 for the two hundred.

Should a Brentwood order stop at two hundred pieces or go up to two hundred and fifty? Two hundred and fifty crosses into the 24 cent band. On that same two by three inch design it takes each sticker from $1.56 to $1.44 and the batch from $312.00 to $360.00, so you pay more overall and less per piece.

Can I collect a Brentwood order at the shop instead of having it sent? Yes. Pickup at 205 East Main Street is free, and it is the same counter where the printing and cutting is done.

We only need enough stickers for one show. Is that too small for a Brentwood order? No. An order qualifies at ten pieces or at ten dollars of merchandise, whichever comes first, so a single show sized batch is fine. The per inch rate will simply sit in one of the higher bands.

Our drummer is in Deer Park and our singer is in Bay Shore. Does that complicate a Brentwood order? Not at all. Both of those sit within 3.9 miles and are covered from the same shop, so you can send the box to whichever address suits the group best, or have one person collect for everyone.