Making stickers is a great way to express yourself and add a personal touch to your belongings! It can seem intimidating at first, but it may be easier than you think. In this guide we will go step-by-step through the process from coming up with ideas to designing on illustrator to the finished piece!
Step 1: Brainstorm Ideas
Think about what you are interested in or passionate about. How can you turn that into a cute phrase, object, or combine both? Feel free to go online for inspiration! Looking at platforms like Pinterest and Instagram can be great ways to find new ideas. Once you come up with a rough idea, it’s time to move onto the next step. Don’t worry if you don’t have an exact vision, you can always change it along the way.
Step 2: Starting out in Adobe Illustrator
If you’ve never used Adobe before it can be intimidating but we’ll start small.
(If you don’t have adobe illustrator or don’t want to download it that’s okay! There are other ways to make stickers, but this tutorial might not be for you. Feel free to look up other ways to make stickers without adobe software.)
- Open Adobe Illustrator
- Find the Create New button and decide on the size of your sticker.
- Choose the orientation on the right hand side.
- Change the size to the size you want your sticker to be.
- Remember! You can always make the sticker smaller than the canvas, so its better to make it a little bigger than you may need.
- When you’re finished, hit the create button!
Step 3: Learning the basics
Before we start designing, its important to know how to know what the tools are and how to use them. This short list should give you a good idea of the basic tools and what they do.
- Selection Tool (V)- Lets you select entire objects, move them around, and drag at the corners to resize them
- TIP- When resizing an object or text box, ALWAYS hold down the shift key to keep the object proportional.
- Direct Selection Tool- Lets you select, move, and alter specify points, line, and elements in your design
- Type Tool (T)- Lets you add and modify text
- Shape Tool (M)- Lets you create basic shapes like rectangles, circles, and triangles
- TIP- To create more complex shapes or objects, layer shapes together, then using the selection tool, select them all, go to pathfinder on the right-hand side, and click unite to make one shape.
- Command Z- If you make a mistake at any point in your design, don’t stress. Use command Z to undo your last step.
- Command A- Lets you copy:
- All text in the box (if you have the type tool selected)
- Everything on the canvas (if you have the select tool selected)
If at any point you cant find these, or other tools you want, go to Windows at the top of your screen. This houses all of the tools on Illustrator.
Now that you know the basics it’s time to start designing!
Step 4: Adding Text
(If you don’t want text, no problem, just skip this step.)
- Click on the type tool(T), then click on the canvas.
- Now choose anything you want, a fun phrase, a song lyric, a slogan, you name it!
- Click delete to get rid of the filler text and add your own.
- While on the type tool, click anywhere in the text and use Command A to select all
- From here you can change the size, font, the color (fill), and add outlines (stroke)
- When you’re done, go to the layer palette on the right-hand side and hit the plus button to add a new layer.
- Layers will allow you to organize your text and other elements and choose what you want in front.
Once you have text that fits your style, it’s time to move on to shapes! If your text isn’t perfect, don’t stress, you can always go back and adjust it later.
Step 5: Adding Shapes
(If you only want text, feel free to skip this step)
- Click on the shape tool(M)
- Choose what shape you want and click and drag on the canvas to create it.
- Use “fill” on the righthand side to add a fun color.
- Use the stroke tool to add an outline if you want one.
- TIP- You can adjust the thickness and color of the stroke on the right hand side.
- Add as many shapes as you want!
- TIP- If you make a shape or object that you like and want to repeat, use the select tool to select the entire object, command C to copy, and command P to paste.
Now that you have your texts and shapes, your design is almost complete! Experiment dragging different elements around to create a pleasing pattern or design that fits your style! If you want to go back and play with fonts, sizes, or colors, now’s the time to do it.
Step 6: Outlining your design
Before starting this next step ensure that your design is just how you like it! If you want to move elements around after this step, you will start over and repeat the step again.
- TIP- I recommend hitting save (or file, save) to make sure your design is backed up. If you want to save this design to use later, or as a backup, go to file, save a copy, choose a name and where you want to save it, and hit save. Now you have a copy of your design that will not be affected by the next steps!
- Now that your design is saved and exactly how you want it, use the select tool to select your text box/es.
- With your text box selected, go to Type at the top of your screen.
- Under type, hit the create outlines button. This should create a thin blued outline around your text.
- Now use the select tool to select all components of your sticker.
- With everything selected go to Object at the top of your screen.
- Under Object, hit Group.
- This groups all of your components together, so if you want to move or resize your design, you can do all components at once. It also prevents you from moving elements accidentally during this step.
- With everything still selected, go to Edit at the top of your screen.
- Under Edit, hit Copy.
- Under Edit again, hit Paste in Place.
- This will not appear to do anything, but it creates a copy of your design directly underneath your original copy, so don’t worry if you can’t see it.
- Go to stroke on the righthand side, change stroke from 20-30 points depending on how thick you want the outline of your sticker. All elements of the sticker should connect.
- Select the word stroke, change stroke to round cap and round join.
- Under Object on the top screen, select Expand and hit Okay.
- Using pathfinder on the right hand side, click to unite.
- On the left hand side of the screen, switch the fill and stroke.
- Go back to object on the top of the screen.
- Under Object select Group one more time.
Congratulations! Your final design with your outline is now created!
If you plan on cutting the sticker, you may want to leave a color on the outline to show you where to cut.
If you plan on using a machine like Circuit, you can make the stroke clear, the machine will still be able to read it. (This post only explains how to make cut by hand stickers, but you can still use the design you created in a cut-machine)
Step 7: Saving and Exporting
Now that your sticker is done its time to take it off the screen and onto paper!
- Go to file and save one last time.
- Still under file, go to Export, and select Export As.
- Choose your file name and where you want to save it.
- Make sure that the format is a png and hit Export.
- In the options, make sure that the resolution is high (300 ppi) and hit okay.
Now that your file is saved and in a printable format, it’s time to print your design!
Step 8: Making the finished Project
Now that the design is completed, the rest is simple.
- Open the png of the design and hit print.
- Load sticker paper into your printer.
- Hit print.
- Once printed, use scissors to cut out your design and you’re done!
Final Tips and Thoughts
Congratulations on making your first sticker! Now you have a completed sticker that you can use to accessorize your water bottles, laptop, phone case, car, or anything else you can think of! Because you learned how to use adobe to make stickers, you can have fun with it! Try fun color combinations and let your imagination run wild! Come back to this post whenever you’re stuck and beautify your life one sticker at a time!