Die-Cut Stickers for Island Park, New York

A four piece band with a finished record, a logo they have been using on every flyer and a merch table that still looks thin is usually trying to solve one small problem: they need something cheap enough to hand out freely that still carries the name. Small labels arrive at the same point from the other direction. They have three or four releases to push, a mailing list, and a pile of envelopes that all need something extra dropped in. In both cases the answer is the same object, a die cut sticker with the artwork cut to its own outline rather than trapped in a square.

This page is written for that order. Everything here is printed and cut at our single storefront at 205 East Main Street in Huntington, New York. Die cut stickers are priced by the square inch, which means the size of the design and the size of the run both move the number, and neither one is a mystery before you commit.

How the square inch rate works

The price of a sticker is its area multiplied by a rate, and the rate falls as the run gets longer. It is 35 cents per square inch at 1 to 24 pieces, 30 cents at 25 to 49, 28 cents at 50 to 99, 26 cents at 100 to 249, 24 cents at 250 to 499, and 22 cents at 500.

Take the size most merch stickers land on, 2.5 by 2.5 inches. That works out to 6.25 square inches. At 200 pieces the rate is 26 cents, so each sticker is $1.62 and the run comes to $325.00. Move the same artwork up to 250 pieces and the rate drops to 24 cents, which puts each sticker at $1.50 and the 250 piece run at $375.00. Fifty more stickers for fifty more dollars, and every sticker in the run gets cheaper at the same time.

That is the arithmetic worth doing before you settle on a number. If your plan is 200 and you can imagine giving away another fifty over the life of the record, the higher count is the better buy on a per piece basis. If 200 is genuinely all you want, 200 is what you should order. We would rather you knew where the line sat than guessed at it.

Deciding how many to print

Bands tend to underestimate. A sticker gets handed to anyone who stops at the table, goes into every mail order, gets stuck to the inside of a case and given to whoever helped load in. Labels tend to overestimate a single design and underestimate how many designs they want, because each release wants its own.

An order qualifies at 10 or more pieces or at $10 of merchandise, whichever comes first. That is a minimum for the order to go through, not a price floor, so a small test of one design before you commit to a long run is a reasonable thing to do.

Everything nearby is very close together

Island Park sits 23.5 miles south west of the shop, measured as a straight line rather than a route. What stands out is not that figure but how tightly the surrounding places we also cover are packed in. Long Beach is 1.1 miles away.

Oceanside is 2.2. East Rockaway is 2.6, Hewlett is 3.2 and Baldwin Harbor is

3.5. Five neighbours, all inside three and a half miles.

That matters more than it sounds for a band. The drummer, the person who runs the mailing list and the friend who works the table are rarely at the same address, and in this corner of Nassau County the gap between them is often shorter than the width of a single neighbourhood. One run of stickers split three ways does not turn into a logistics problem.

Artwork, and what the cut line does to it

A die cut follows the outline of your design, so the shape of the artwork is part of the decision. A circular logo comes back as a circle. A wordmark with a long tail comes back with that tail intact. If the artwork has fine points or thin strokes reaching out from the body of the design, tell us, because those are the parts that benefit from a little breathing room inside the cut.

At 2.5 inches square, a band name reads well and a catalogue number reads badly. Small type, thin outlines and detail from a record sleeve that was designed to be seen at twelve inches all lose their footing at merch sticker size. Send the artwork at the size you want it printed if you can, and say which element has to stay legible. We will work to that.

Multiple designs are normal. A label putting out three records in a year usually wants three, and there is nothing stopping you ordering them together.

Getting the finished run

You can collect free of charge from the shop, or have the order shipped anywhere in the United States. Checkout works without an account.

Four people this page is for

The band with a first pressing. You have one logo, no budget to speak of, and a table to fill. One design, one size, and a count that clears 250 if you can stretch to it.

The label with a roster. Several designs, each one tied to a release, ordered together rather than one at a time. Keeping the sizes consistent across the catalogue makes the mailers easier to pack.

The solo artist. Small runs, ordered more often, artwork that changes. The minimum is low enough that testing a design before committing is not wasteful.

The person running the merch table for other people. You are handling stock for acts who are not in the room, which means clear labelling on your end and a single order that can be split when it arrives.

Questions worth answering before you order

What does a run of 200 of the 2.5 by 2.5 inch sticker cost for an Island Park band? Two hundred pieces falls in the 100 to 249 band, so the rate is 26 cents per square inch. The sticker is 6.25 square inches, which makes it $1.62 each and $325.00 for the run.

We were going to order 200. Why would an Island Park order of 250 be better value? Because 250 crosses into the next band, where the rate drops to 24 cents. The same sticker becomes $1.50 each and 250 of them is $375.00. You pay fifty dollars more and every sticker costs less.

Is there a minimum on an Island Park order if we only want to test one design? An order qualifies at 10 or more pieces or at $10 of merchandise, whichever comes first. It is a threshold for placing the order, not a floor on what you are allowed to spend, so a short test run of a single design is fine.

Can an Island Park order be collected instead of shipped? Yes. Collection from the Huntington storefront is free, and it is the same counter where the run was cut. If nobody can make the trip, shipping within the United States is the alternative.

Which ZIP code should an Island Park order be addressed to? 11558, in Nassau County. If the stickers are going to somebody in Long Beach or Oceanside instead, use their address at checkout rather than yours, since those neighbours sit close enough that people often mix the two up.