Die Cut Stickers for North Hills, New York

Searingtown and Manhasset both sit about a mile out in opposite directions, with

Manhasset Hills, Albertson and Herricks gathered a little further around them, and North Hills sits in the middle of that small cluster of Nassau County places we cut for. Orders out of this pocket often arrive in a familiar shape: a band or a small label wanting something to sell on a merch table, tuck into a mail order, or hand out at the door. Each sticker is cut to the outline of the artwork you send, so the shape of the file is the shape of the finished piece.

The address carries the order, not a postcode

We hold no ZIP code of our own on file for here, which means a North Hills order is placed and addressed by street address alone, which is simpler than it sounds. Put the house or building number, the street, the town line and the state into the shipping fields exactly as they appear on the mail you already receive, and the order is labelled that way. If the address on your card is not the address you want the box sent to, type the shipping address you want and leave the billing address as your bank has it. The two fields are independent.

How a square inch turns into a price

Die cut stickers are priced by area, not by design, so the first thing to work out is the footprint. Multiply width by height and you have the number of square inches. The rate per square inch then falls as the count rises:

• 1 to 24 pieces 35 cents per square inch
• 25 to 49 pieces 30 cents
• 50 to 99 pieces 28 cents
• 100 to 249 pieces 26 cents
• 250 to 499 pieces 24 cents
• 500 pieces 22 cents

Area times rate times count, and that is the figure.

The same sticker, costed at two counts

Take a 2.5 by 2.5 inch sticker, which is 6.25 square inches. Ordered at 120 pieces, the rate is 26 cents, so each one comes to $1.62 and the run of 120 is $195.00. Ordered at 250 pieces, the rate drops to 24 cents, so the identical sticker is $1.50 each and the run of 250 is $375.00.

Those two lines are worth comparing before you commit to a count. Going from 120 to 250 roughly doubles what you get and takes 12 cents off every piece, but it roughly doubles what you pay up front too. If you know you will reorder the same design, the larger run is the cheaper way to get there. If the design is tied to one release, the smaller run is the honest choice.

The threshold an order has to clear

An order qualifies at 10 or more pieces, or at $10 of merchandise, whichever comes first. That is a threshold, not a price floor. A large sticker can reach the $10 mark well under 10 pieces, and a small one can pass 10 pieces well under $10. Either route counts, and there is no need to pad an order to make it work.

Artwork that suits a shape cut

The cutter follows a line, so the useful question about any file is where that line should go. A logo with a clear outer boundary is straightforward. Lettering with thin descenders, spiky serifs or long trailing strokes is worth a second look, since the cut line has to find its way around every one of them. Thickening a stroke slightly, or putting a border around the whole mark so the line sits outside the art rather than on it, usually settles the question.

Send the art at the size you want it printed rather than leaving it to be scaled up, and keep a small margin of colour beyond the intended cut. If you are sending several designs from one release, say which is which in the order notes, because file names alone rarely tell a final version from a rough.

Where we are, from you

The shop is a single storefront at 205 East Main Street in Huntington, 16.2 miles from North Hills in a straight line to the north east. Everything is printed and cut there. Local pickup is free if you would rather collect than have a box sent, and anything that is not collected ships within the United States.

Who these runs usually belong to

A band with a first single out. You want something to go in the envelope with the record and something to leave on a table. At a small count the per piece rate sits at its highest, so let the size do the work: a 2 by 2 inch sticker is four square inches, a very different number from a 3 by 3 at nine.

A label carrying several artists. Each design is its own run, so each one lands in its own band on the rate table. Before you settle the counts, look at where each artist's run falls. Nudging one from 90 pieces to 100 moves it from 28 cents to 26, and that can cost less in total than the smaller order it replaces.

Someone packing mail order from a spare room. Stickers are the lightest thing you can add to a package and the easiest to slip in as a small extra. A large run at the 500 piece rate of 22 cents per square inch gives you a pile to draw on without thinking about it again.

A musician doing a one off giveaway. If this is a single push around a demo and not the start of a catalogue, do not over order. Work out the area, find the band your count sits in, and take that number rather than reaching for a cheaper rate you have no use for.

Questions we get asked

Nothing comes up for my address when I search for a North Hills ZIP code, so what should I enter at checkout? Enter the street address as it reads on your own post, along with the state. We hold no ZIP for the area, and the order is handled off the street address, so a blank or unfamiliar postcode lookup is nothing to worry about.

Does a 120 piece North Hills order really cost the same per sticker as a 250 piece one? No, and the gap is worth knowing. On a 2.5 by 2.5 inch design, 120 pieces work out at $1.62 each for $195.00, while 250 pieces work out at $1.50 each for $375.00. The rate moves from 26 cents to 24 cents per square inch when the count reaches 250.

Can I collect a North Hills order at the shop instead of having it sent? Yes. Pickup at the Huntington storefront is free, and the shop is the only place anything is made, so there is nothing to transfer before you arrive.

Our band rehearses in North Hills but our drummer lives in Manhasset, can the box go to him instead? Yes. Put his address in the shipping fields and ours goes there. Any address in the United States works, and it does not have to match the one on the card.

We only want a handful for a North Hills release, is there a minimum? An order qualifies at 10 or more pieces or at $10 of merchandise, whichever comes first. A handful of larger stickers will often clear the $10 mark on its own, so a small run is usually fine as it stands.