Custom Die-Cut Stickers for Locust Valley, New York

Start with the decision that actually shapes the order: are you coming to collect these, or do you want them sent? Collection at the shop costs nothing. Shipping costs whatever the carrier charges, and that is a real line on the total. Neither answer is better in the abstract, but for a Locust Valley address it deserves a moment of thought rather than a reflex: the trip is short enough that plenty of people make it and long enough that plenty of people would rather not. Everything below assumes you have not decided yet.

What a merch sticker run usually involves

For a band or a small label, a sticker is the piece of merch that gets handed over rather than sold. It ends up on a case, a laptop, a board, the inside of a record sleeve. The artwork is usually a logo or a single piece of lettering, often already drawn for a shirt or a jacket, and the shape is rarely a rectangle. A die-cut sticker is cut to follow the outline of the art, so a logo with a pointed serif or a long swash comes out with that outline intact rather than sitting inside a square nobody asked for.

Two practical things follow. The size that matters for pricing is the bounding box of the artwork, not the visual weight of the design, because the cost is worked out from that rectangle. And a logo built for a twelve inch jacket does not always survive being reduced to two inches: thin strokes close up, the gaps inside letters fill in, and a cut line asked to follow a one millimetre spike is a cut line under strain.

Paying by the square inch

Die-cut stickers are priced per square inch, and the rate steps down as the count goes up. 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.

Work a common size through it. A 2 by 2 inch sticker is 4 square inches. At 25 pieces the rate is 30 cents, so each one is $1.20 and 25 of them is $30.00. At 50 pieces the rate drops to 28 cents, so the same 2 by 2 inch sticker is $1.12 and 50 of them is $56.00. Going from 25 to 50 doubles what you end up holding for $26.00 more, which is arithmetic worth doing before committing to the smaller number.

There is a minimum, and it is not a price floor. An order qualifies at 10 or more pieces or at $10 of merchandise, whichever comes first.

Collecting, or having the box sent

Locust Valley sits 9.2 miles west of the shop in a straight line. That is map distance and nothing else. The shop is one storefront at 205 East Main Street in Huntington, where the printing and the cutting both happen, and collection there costs nothing. If you would rather not make the trip, an order goes out to 11560 like anything else we send within the United States, and you can check out as a guest either way. Nothing about an address in that part of Nassau County changes how the job is set up.

Five neighbours inside four and a half miles

This is worth knowing if a group is splitting an order. The five places nearest Locust Valley that we also cover all sit within four and a half miles of it: Bayville at 2.3 miles, Glen Cove at 3.2, Glen Head at 3.7, Muttontown at 3.9 and Sea Cliff at 4.4. Straight line again, in every case.

For a four or five piece band whose members are scattered across that cluster, the gap between whoever places the order and whoever ends up with the stickers is small. One order and one collection, with the pile divided at rehearsal, is simpler than five shipments to five addresses. It also keeps the run inside a single quantity band instead of breaking it into five small ones, each paying a worse rate per square inch.

Artwork and the cut line

Send the cleanest version of the mark you have. Vector art is the easiest thing to cut to, because the outline is already a path and the cut line can be offset from it by a consistent amount.

Decide early whether the cut should hug the art or sit outside a border. A keyline, a solid outline a few millimetres wide sitting around the logo, gives the cut something forgiving to follow and stops a thin serif from becoming the outer edge of the sticker. Keep small text away from that edge. Two related designs, a logo and a wordmark, say, can run as one order rather than two.

Four kinds of order we see

A band ordering a first run. Usually one logo, usually two inches, usually more copies than anyone expects to need. This is the case where the step from 25 to 50 repays a close look, because the per piece price falls as the count rises.

A label with several acts on the roster. Separate designs, each with its own count, and a decision about whether to order them together or keep each act on its own order. The quantity bands apply to what is on the order in front of us, which is the thing to weigh before splitting.

A solo artist packing mail orders by hand. Small stickers dropped into envelopes with a record or a shirt. Count matters more than size here, and the minimum is almost never the constraint.

Whoever handles the merch table. Often not the person who drew the logo and often not the person who pays. Worth settling at the point of ordering who is collecting the box and where the artwork came from.

Questions from bands and labels out that way

Our band is in Locust Valley and this is our first run. Should we start at 25 or 50? At 2 by 2 inches, 25 pieces is $1.20 each and $30.00 total, while 50 is $1.12 each and $56.00 total. You get twice the stickers for $26.00 more. If you expect to hand them out freely, 50 is the better shape of the two.

Three of us live in Locust Valley and the rest are over in Bayville and Sea Cliff. Can one person collect for everybody? Yes, and it is usually the sensible move. One order, one person at the shop, the pile divided at rehearsal. The run also stays in a single quantity band that way.

We only want a small handful to hand out. Does a Locust Valley order that size still qualify? It qualifies at 10 or more pieces or at $10 of merchandise, whichever you reach first. A few large stickers can clear the value side without getting anywhere near ten pieces.

Our label is looking at 500 for a release. Does a Locust Valley order that size change the rate again? Yes, 500 is where the rate reaches 22 cents per square inch, the lowest step on the scale. Below it the band is 24 cents from 250 to 499.

Is it actually worth shipping to Locust Valley rather than collecting? That depends on you and not on us. Collection is free and shipping is a genuine cost on the order. Some people would rather pay it than make the trip, and that is a perfectly reasonable answer.