Help me choose a MO Senate sticker design

[usregimechange]

Which one is better? The outside edge of each would not be visible on the product.

[Nitrogenica]

1. Larger Type maybe?

I like-a-the bottom one better though.

[Mairead]

2. I'd use stronger colors and a sans font family like Univers

The top one has almost no contrast. If you did that in p'shop, desaturate a copy and you'll see what I mean.

There're also a minimum of 3 colors there even if you halftone the black, and you're getting almost nothing out of it, though you'll pay just as much for it as for the other 2. Silk screening is very coarse--the highlighting and shading that looks good now will be muddy at best once it goes through the screen.

Sorry to be such a wet blanket, :(

[usregimechange]

3. Yes, I increased the contrast on the top, does look better but...

What does the second paragraph mean? There isn't black in either one.

[Mairead]

5. "There isn't black in either one"

See the drop shadows? There are 2 ways to get them (3 really, but the third doesn't make any sense).

The usual method is to use solid colors for the background (in the top case that's the turquoisish color and the ochre color) and overprint it with a halftone tint of a darker color--black, usually--for the shadows, for the texture in the ochre text, and for that darkened center in the star.

An alternate way would be to pick some quite dark colors (again, that would be a quite dark turquoise and ochre for the top one), print those as solids or near-solids for the shadows, texture, and center but as a halftone tint (where the white vinyl of the sticker shows through in little tiny dots and, visually, makes the turquoise look lighter (our eyes do the work). But halftoned bumper stickers tend to be blotchy--the silkscreen technology isn't very sophisticated, so the little dots vary in size promiscuously.

In either case, the white highlights along the edges of the letters etc come for free--you just don't print anything there and let the white vinyl of the sticker show through.

If I were going to do that, and really really wanted drop shadows and raised lettering, I'd go with 3 colors. I wouldn't try the alternate trick because it always looks cheap. You can sometimes see the same thing where people try to get by with 3-color printing (magenta, cyan, and yellow) instead of the usual 4 (those plus black)==everything looks cheesy and washed out! Black is a vital color in printing--nothing looks good without it, when shading is involved.

But in your place, I wouldn't try for the fancy features. I'd basically follow Rosco's advice and do 2 colors on white except I wouldn't ever put red and blue directly together because of the way human eyes work--the combination causes a little queasiness when looked at, which is the last thing you want.

(edit) Oh, and line things up, too. Things always look better when the edges line up. If you do line them up, make sure you do it optically rather than mechanically. For example, lining up an O along the left edge means moving it just a teensy bit "too far" left, into the margin, so that optically it looks lined up even tho it's not.

I hope that helps.

(I thought you could test the role of black in pshop by converting to cymk and turning off the black channel, but that doesn't work. It should work, but maybe only in some special pre-press mode that I never use)

[usregimechange]

6. Ok, I am not sure what you just said

I have photo shop but have only been using it for 6 months and never had any training. Thanks for the time you spent though.

[Mairead]

11. Let me try to boil it down more :-)

If you want shadows and textured effects, you'll have to pay extra for extra applications of ink to simulate them.

Fine detail such as subtle shadows get lost because of the technical limitations of the manufacturing process.

So for bumper stickers, it's usually best--and less expensive--to use bold, flat colors in a bold, flat design.

[Rosco T.]

4. Several things...

1) the texturing in the text is overkill.. this is on a bumper, you'll never see it.

2) Serif fonts tend to lost readability over distance, a nice clean sanserif would be better.

3) use a simple color reversal. Start with the bottom, make all the text in the blue area WHITE, leave the text below BLUE.Make the star RED with a WHITE tail and forget the shading (again, overkill for a bumper sticker). That gets it down to a three color print (BLUE/WHITE/RED) for lower costs.

[PresidentObama]

7. And how can I get one of those bumper stickers?

Missouri first time voter in 2006. I'll proudly be voting for Claire.

[usregimechange]

8. The bottom design is available here:

http://www.cafepress.com/mccaskill4sen

[Brundle_Fly]

9. Lose the photoshop Bevels and Effects

and never squish your typefaces.

[usregimechange]

10. The text effects likely won't show unless you get real close but

I like em. What does, "squish your typefaces" mean? On the top one? Which one is better?

[sandnsea]

12. What's the brand?

Claire for US Senate, focus on domestic issues?

Or McCaskill for US Senate, a tougher campaign?

The first one, McCaskill and US Senate jump out. The second one, Claire and US Senate jump out.

It's awfully big to get an overall feel for them otherwise, at least for me.

[cyn2]

13. lose the gold

Just go with blue and white. easier to read.

The bottom one with all white lettering would work best. Perhaps the star in red with white outline?

I'm always trying to read bumper stickers and most are just too hard to read.