There have never been as many tools available to artists as there are now for creating sticker art. When deciding on the right tools and workflow to use, a quick search online will yield a multitude of options, such as smartphones with mobile graphics apps to tablets with digital pencils to even professional desktop systems.
With so many ways available to create a sticker, where does an artist (or even non-artists) start when deciding on how to create print-ready sticker art? Well, that's what we will explore in our "Make It Stick" series of articles that will present the different options available utilizing different workflows. The choice is yours: you could begin the process with online clipart or use something as simple as a sketch on a notepad. You may even prefer to use a combination of media and techniques.
In this article, we will look at one of the simplest workflows for creating stickers. We will start with a quick, hand-drawn sketch and end up with a completed vector art file that is ready for sticker printing.
Create a kid-friendly sticker to give students when they have achieved a milestone in their reading progress. We chose to use a "book worm" with an open book. We will be using an iPhone™ and MacBook Pro™ with Adobe PhotoShop™ and Adobe Illustrator™ installed.
Start by lightly pencil-sketching a curved guideline that will orient the shape of the book worm's body. This will be intentionally light so we can easily remove it later. Create partial elliptical shapes that progressively get larger from the tail to the head. Add a mouth, eyes with glasses, and finally antennae on top. Separately, a little distance from the book worm, draw an open book with pages.
Creating these elements separately will provide some flexibility when adjusting the position and adding color, as you will see later. Finally, take your Sharpie marker and trace over the pencil sketch, varying the line thickness for added visual interest.
In somewhat good lighting conditions, take a picture of the art with your smartphone (with the flash turned off). Try to maintain a direct, overhead angle, otherwise, the perspective may be skewed and distorted from the original. Transfer the image to your laptop or desktop computer.
Open the image in Adobe Photoshop and convert it to Grayscale Mode: Image > Mode > Grayscale. Using the Curves dialog box: Image > Adjustments > Curves, click on the lightly sketched curved guideline line using the "white point" eyedropper. Now take the "black point" eyedropper and click any solid area created with the Sharpie marker. By setting the lightest and darkest points in the image we are reducing most of the grey areas, which will result in a simpler vector shape (next step).
Use the eraser tool to clean up any remaining unwanted elements then save the file in a JPEG or TIFF format.
Note: If you're an experienced Adobe Photoshop user, you can further smooth out the contours by applying a slight Gaussian Blur: Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, then adjusting Input Levels: Image > Adjustments > Levels.
Create a new document in Adobe Illustrator. Place the adjusted image file within the document: File > Place. Depending on the image size and resolution, you may have to scale it down to fit your preferred size.
With the image selected, select the menu: Object > Image Trace > Make and Expand. This will convert this placed artwork from a pixel-based image to a vector-based object (this will not affect your original image file). Depending on your settings, you may have to delete an outer rectangle resulting from the image "bounding box" using the Direct Selection Tool.
Note: You may want to adjust any paths as you see fit. We chose to use the Smooth Tool to reduce anchor points and remove sharp corners.
With the Direct Selection Tool, drag-select over the "book worm" and position it over the "open book." Scale, rotate and adjust position as necessary. Deselect any objects by clicking anywhere in the blank document area away from the objects.
Note: Both objects will be grouped as one unit by default (unless you placed them as separate images) after you converted them into a vector in the previous step. A quick way to isolate them as separate units is to cut (⌘ + X) the selected art and paste (⌘ + V) it back into the file. You can then manipulate each object set as individual groups, independently.
Add the base colors by selecting the individual areas with the Direct Selection Tool. Add highlights and shadows by creating additional paths and color accordingly. For the shadows, we used a 15% black with the Blending Mode set to Multiply in the Transparency palette: Window > Transparency. For the highlights, we applied an Offset Path with a negative value: Object > Path > Offset Path and colored them with lighter colors values of the base color.
Type out your message, position it, and then add color. We created a copy of the type behind with a thick, black stroke for added emphasis.
Finally, let's create the outer path that will be used for the cut-line. If you're an experienced Adobe Illustrator user, you can draw a path that follows the contour of your art with the Pen Tool. For newer users, a simpler and faster way is to select all of the art then use an Offset Path with a non-negative value: Object > Path > Offset Path. The value entered is subjective and depends on the size of the art. We used a .125" offset for this art which is approximately 4" wide by 3.35" tall.
With the offset path still selected, use the Unite option, under Shape Modes in the Pathfinder palette to unite it as one shape. Apply a fill of none and a thin stroke for the cut line. We used .5 pt. Again, we chose to use the Smooth Tool to reduce anchor points and remove sharp corners.
In this article, we used a simple workflow with a very basic example of how to create stickers from a hand-drawn sketch. There are numerous other ways to achieve similar results and we will explore some of those as well as start with other types of art (colored paintings, vector clipart, photos, etc.) in future posts.
