We do offer die-cut stickers, though the majority of the time, the term "die-cut" is misused, and what is actually meant is "plotter cut" or "contour cut". Unfortunately, many in the sign industry use the term "die-cut" incorrectly. Unless you're making thousands of stickers, and in relatively simple shapes, you probably want plotter-cut. The key differences are explained below.
Plotter Cut
A plotter is a computer-controlled device that can plot (drawing with a pen) or cut (with a razor sharp knife). The plotter moves the media and its cutting head to make precision cuts across the surface of vinyl film. The movement of the media and cutting head is controlled by a computer.
This cutting process is similar to tracing, the knife is moved along the stroke each drawing object in your vector art. Unlike "die-cut" stickers, there is not setup cost associated with making a metal cutting die. As such, production of even small quantities of stickers can be affordable. Vector art is required for the computer and plotter to be able to cut your design. Though a plotter is very fast, a knife is moved across the surface of the vinyl media and it may take several seconds to several minutes to plot a single graphic depending on the size and complexity.
Die Cut
A "die" is similar to a cookie-cutter. A press is used to push a sharp edge through material to cut it. Like a rubber stamp, the entire graphic is made / cut in a single operation in a fraction of a second. With automation, die cut stickers can be cut very quickly, many thousands in a minute. However, most often there is a setup cost associated with making the metal cutting die and setting up the automated press to die-cut your stickers. For simple, standard geometric shapes, we can use existing, pre-made dies. If you need a circular, rectangular, or rectangular sticker with rounded corners, the die may already exist and be ready to use without the associated cost of die creation.
Kiss Cut
A "kiss cut" is a type of die-cut with one significant difference. A die-cut sticker cuts through both the adhesive vinyl and its backing paper in one operation. A "kiss cut" cuts through the vinyl, but not the backing sheet. Depending on your requirements, kiss-cut stickers may involve the creation of 2 dies, one for the adhesive sticker and one for the backing sheet.
Depending on the size and complexity of your graphic, the cost of die creation may be
50 or more. As such, the quantity of stickers must be significant (typically in the thousands) to offset the cost of die creation before die-cut becomes more affordable than plotter cut.
Determining Costs
To provide a quote, minimally we will need to know the type of material, size and quantity needed. Our quote for fabrication will assume that production-ready vector artwork is being provided.
Artwork Requirements
Plotter cut or contour cut graphics require vector art. If you do not have vector artwork, your bitmapped graphic or logo can probably be recreated as vector artwork. There are affordable vector conversion services available on the internet - you can find them by doing a search for "vector conversion" in your favorite search engine.
