Printed vinyl stickers for packaging seals, asset tags, equipment labels and promotional runs. Die-cut, kiss-cut, sheets or rolls, in gloss, matte or clear, with laminate if the sticker has to survive outdoors. Made at our Ravenhall workshop.
A custom sticker is artwork printed onto self-adhesive vinyl, then cut to shape. Everything else — the finish, the cut, the adhesive, whether it comes on a sheet or a roll — is a decision you make based on where the sticker ends up and how long it needs to stay there. A sticker going on a cardboard carton and a sticker going on a plant trailer are not the same product.
Made by Melbourne Trade Signs, a large-format print and signage company on Unit 6/43 Orbis Drive, Ravenhall VIC 3023, in Melbourne’s west. Printed in-house and installed Australia-wide. Phone 0415 743 691.
Stickers are the cheapest way to put a brand or a piece of information on something you already own. They are also the easiest thing to get wrong. Uncoated paper labels fade and scuff. A permanent adhesive on a hire item means somebody scraping glue off later. If the sticker only has to last a season indoors, say so and we will spec something cheaper rather than sell you laminated outdoor vinyl.
We print and cut at our Orbis Drive workshop in Ravenhall, so nothing goes out to a trade supplier and comes back a week later. There is no minimum — a single asset label is a job, and so is five hundred carton seals. Pickup is available during business hours, we deliver across Melbourne and regional Victoria, and freight covers interstate. Smaller consumer-scale runs are better suited to our sister company Sticky Sitch.
Most sticker decisions come down to four things: the face material, whether it is laminated, the adhesive underneath, and how it is cut. Here is what each one changes in practice.
| Material | Finish | Best for | Typical outdoor life |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gloss white vinyl | High shine, colours look punchy | Packaging seals, promo, retail | Three to five years laminated |
| Matte white vinyl | Flat, no glare, takes pen | Asset tags, instruction labels | Three to five years laminated |
| Clear vinyl | Print appears to sit on the surface | Bottles, jars, glass doors | Two to four years |
| Removable white vinyl | Same print, low-tack adhesive | Hire gear, short campaigns, leased sites | One to two years |
| High-tack vinyl | Grips textured and powder-coated surfaces | Plant, bins, site equipment | Three to five years |
| Paper label stock | Cheapest face, no water resistance | Indoor cartons, short-life batch labels | Indoor only |
There is no fixed size list. Cutting is driven by your artwork, not a template. Ganging several designs onto one sheet uses the material better, so tell us the whole job rather than ordering one design at a time.
The same printed artwork can come back six different ways depending on how it is cut and what goes over the top. These are the choices that actually get made on a sticker order.
The blade cuts through both the vinyl and the backing, so every sticker comes off as an individual piece in the shape of your artwork. Best when stickers are handed out, applied one at a time, or dropped into a satchel. Slightly more material waste than kiss-cutting.
The blade cuts the vinyl but leaves the backing intact, so stickers stay on a sheet until someone peels one off. Faster to apply in volume, easier to store, and the backing works as a border you can print on. The usual choice for staff-applied labels.
Wound onto a cardboard core with a small gap between labels, ready for hand application off a bench or feeding into a semi-automatic applicator. Worth it once you are applying hundreds at a time. Tell us the core size and whether you want them wound face-in or face-out.
A clear film heat-applied over the print. It deepens colour, adds scuff and UV resistance, and lets the sticker survive being wiped down. Most outdoor and hospitality stickers get it. On small text it also stops the ink being rubbed away by ordinary handling.
The same protection as gloss with the shine taken out. Photographs read slightly flatter, but it kills glare under downlights and fluoro, which matters on equipment panels and anything staff have to read at an angle. It also takes pen and permanent marker.
Printed on transparent film so the surface behind shows through. Good on glass jars, bottles and shopfront doors where you want the graphic without a white rectangle around it. Light colours go weak over dark backgrounds unless we print a white ink layer underneath first.
A lower-tack glue that lifts cleanly for a period after application, usually a year or two on smooth surfaces. Specify it for leased premises, hire equipment, seasonal promotions and anything you will strip later. It holds fine, it just does not fight you on the way off.
For powder-coated plant, textured plastic bins, roughened metal and cold surfaces. Standard adhesive slides off those within days. High-tack grabs harder and keeps holding through wash-downs and weather. It is close to unremovable once cured, so get the placement right first time.
Small-batch producers use stickers instead of pre-printed packaging because the run size stays flexible and the artwork can change between batches. A plain kraft jar with a well-printed 50 mm seal reads better than a cheap full-colour box. If the product lives in a fridge or a cool room, we laminate and use an adhesive rated for cold and damp application, because standard labels lift at the edges.
Asset tags, plant identification, service-due labels and contact stickers on tools that leave the yard. These get handled, washed, dropped and left in the sun, so they need laminate and a strong adhesive. If the gear is hired out rather than owned, removable adhesive saves you scraping residue off every returned item. We can print sequential numbers into the artwork so nobody writes them on by hand.
Venues order stickers for takeaway lids, allergen and dietary markers, table numbers, staff-only doors and back-of-house instructions. Most of it is indoor, wiped down often, and replaced when the menu changes, so matte laminate over a standard permanent adhesive is usually the right spec. Ordering several designs together in one run uses less material than coming back three separate times in a month.
Event giveaways, laptop stickers, launch campaigns and branded kits. These are usually die-cut singles in a shape that matches the logo, printed once and handed out over months. The thing to get right is the cut line: leave a couple of millimetres of colour outside it so a slight shift on the cutter does not show up as a white sliver along one edge.
Send a vector file if you have one. Stickers are usually small, and small artwork punishes low-resolution files harder than a banner does — a logo pulled off a website will look soft at 50 mm.
If all you have is a logo and a rough idea, that is enough to start. Artwork setup is included, and we will send a proof with the cut line marked before anything goes on the machine.
Stickers are one of the faster jobs we run, mostly because we are not waiting on anyone else — same day sticker printing is a real option if you call early. Print, laminate and cut all happen at Ravenhall, so we control the queue. Tell us the date you need them and we will tell you straight whether it is achievable. Pick up from Orbis Drive during business hours, delivery across Melbourne metro and regional Victoria, freight interstate.
Die-cut means the blade goes all the way through the backing paper, so each sticker is a separate piece. Kiss-cut means the blade only cuts the vinyl, leaving the stickers sitting on a continuous backing sheet.
Die-cut suits anything handed out individually or applied one at a time. Kiss-cut suits volume application, because staff can peel labels off a sheet quickly, and it suits sets of small designs supplied together. Neither costs meaningfully more than the other. It comes down to how the sticker actually gets used.
Laminated vinyl stickers typically hold three to five years outdoors, depending on sun exposure, the angle they are fixed at and how often they get washed. North and west-facing surfaces cop the worst of it and fade first.
Unlaminated vinyl fades noticeably faster, usually inside a year or two. Paper labels are not an outdoor product at all. They wick moisture and lift at the edges within weeks. If a sticker is going outside, laminate is not an upgrade, it is the specification.
Yes, ask for removable adhesive. It is the same printed vinyl with a lower-tack glue that peels off smooth surfaces without leaving residue, usually for a year or two after application.
It is the right call for leased shopfronts, hire equipment, seasonal promotions and anything on painted plasterboard. Be aware that removable describes a window, not a permanent property. Leave a removable sticker on a sunny window for five years and it will still fight you on the way off. If it has to come off, plan when.
Only where you want colours to stay solid. Printing on clear vinyl puts ink over a transparent film, so whatever sits behind the sticker shows through and mixes with your colours. A white ink layer is printed underneath first to block that.
If the sticker goes on a clear glass jar and you want the logo to read crisply, white behind the logo is what makes it work. If you want a subtle, glassy look with light coming through the graphic, leave it off deliberately and we will show you a proof either way.
One. There is no minimum here, and there is no setup penalty that makes a small run pointless.
That said, the material and the machine time behave much the same whether you are printing five stickers or five hundred, so the cost per sticker drops quickly with quantity. If you are ordering more than one design, send them all together and we will lay them up on the same sheet, which uses less material than running three separate jobs a fortnight apart.
Not with a standard adhesive. Powder coat, textured plastic and roughened metal give the glue far less real contact area than smooth surfaces do, and an ordinary sticker will lift at the edges within days.
The fix is a high-tack adhesive, which grabs harder and conforms better. Surface temperature matters too. Most adhesives will not bond properly below about ten degrees, so applying to cold plant in a winter yard is a common reason stickers fail. Clean the surface with isopropyl alcohol first, not a general purpose spray.
Stickers for toolboxes, equipment and the ute? See tradie signs.
Printed and cut vinyl decals for shopfront and office glass, applied to either face of the pane, with removable film specified where the lease has a make-good clause.
See the detail →Product labels supplied on sheets or rolls, and weatherproof bumper stickers built to survive years of sun, rain and automatic car washes without the print breaking up.
See the detail →Slip-rated printed decals for retail floors, warehouse walkways and brand activations, with a textured anti-slip laminate and an adhesive matched to the floor surface underneath them.
See the detail →Need stickers that read at night? Reflective stickers for trucks, plant and gates live on our roadwork and traffic signs page. Or browse the full list on our A–Z of everything we print.
Send the artwork, the quantity and where they are going. We will come back with a quote inside two business hours on a business day.