Merch manufacturer adventures pt2: stickers (Patreon)

Hello~

And here is the second and last part of my manufacturer adventures, this one will be much shorter because the stickers didn't cause me so much issues ahaha and they are much faster to make.

I primarily used Zap Creatives for stickers, again before UK didn't leave EU it was very comfortable and they had nice discounts for stickers. Their sticker quality was also very nice! I really liked their colors(when they didn't misprint stuff ahaha).

But Zap being Zap I was never fully happy with their outcome, for whatever reason they were not consistent with their outline thickness, my first order had this massive ass border which is 5mm when the usual border they make is about 3mm. Photo for comparison.

When I reordered stickers with them of the same designs the outline thickness changed to a thinner one, which is cool but also consistency?? And they completely ignored my instructions of the sticker amounts I wanted...printed a bunch of stickers of a design that was not my best seller and printed my bestseller design as less ahah. And they reprinted one sticker design darker, even tho it was same file ahah...oh well. This was back in 2018-2019! 

So after years of not using Zap idk how their stickers are now, but I decided not to bother with them and just try my luck with Sticker App. I have a bit mixed feelings atm, but I do like their quality and I think I will use them in the future. They have a lot of offices in Europe, so for EU artists it's perfect with the fast delivery and no customs tax to pay! And they also have a US office too.

So my first order of stickers with them were my CSM and Tristamp stickers, and I did not know what to expect, I ordered glossy vinyl stickers like I did with Zap, it seems Stickerapp uses a bit different printers because if you order glossy the printing darkens the design significantly! Also makes the reds duller...which happened to my poor Vash stickers and esp Nico...Nico looked so bad I was so upset. So I had to reorder some of the designs once I fixed the files. Sadly the camera does not capture how bad they actually looked ahah.

But have this comparison of my reorder where I significantly edited the files to fix the colors. Again my phone camera makes the bad ones look ok, but irl they look much worse.

Nico only

But I did like how my Nai came out and all my CSM stickers, and I was able to add a holo effect too!

Their file and order submit button is very easy to use and their line consistency is very good too so far, the white outline is about 2mm thickness. Overall loved Stickerapp and the quality of their printing and colors after I realized not to make things too dark and more saturated if it's glossy! Their manufacturing and delivery is fast! The only con is that they don't make sample stickers of your design, like you can't order one sticker of a design, but you can order in smaller quantities. I definitely suggest ordering their sticker sample pack, because you can also see their holo sticker effects.

My bff ordered stickers from them too, but she had some issues where they added the wrong effects, since it was their error my friend asked them to fix it and it was done free of charge and pretty fast! So that's nice, but make sure that everything you've ordered is correct! It seems they have a lot of orders so they might make some mistakes here and there. My friend and I ordered from their German branch.

Also their matte stickers are so nice to the touch!! Just a small silly detail ahaha.

So in general, Stickerapp is nice, there are some cons...but I will still use them in the future for sure!:) Definitely want to try out their sticker sheet options! 

Moral of the story don't make your designs too dark esp if you are going to make glossy stickers!