How to use what you got
Good afternoon.
A sticker is not only fun for children, but also sometimes a convenient and necessary thing (it helps you quickly find your way around). For example, you have several identical boxes in which you store various tools. It would be convenient if each of them had a specific sticker: drills here, screwdrivers here, etc.
Of course, you can now find a huge variety of stickers in stores, but still, not all of them (and it takes time to search)! In this article I would like to consider the question of how to make a sticker yourself without using any rare things or equipment (by the way, the sticker will not be afraid of water!).
What do you need?
1) Scotch tape.
The most ordinary tape will do. On sale today you can find tape of various widths: for creating stickers, the wider the better (although a lot depends on the size of your sticker)!
2) Picture.
You can draw the picture yourself on paper. Or you can download it on the Internet and print it on a regular printer. In general, the choice is yours.
3) Scissors.
No comments (any will do).
4) Warm water.
Regular tap water will do.
I think almost everyone has everything they need to create a sticker in their home! And so, let's move directly to creation.
How to make it waterproof sticker yourself - step by step
STEP 1 - search for a picture
The first thing we need is the picture itself, which will be drawn or printed on plain paper. In order not to search for an image for a long time, I simply printed out a picture from my previous one about antiviruses on a regular laser printer (black and white printer).
Rice. 1. The picture was printed on a regular laser printer.
By the way, there are now printers on sale that can immediately print ready-made stickers! For example, on the website http://price.ua/catalog107.html you can buy a barcode and sticker printer.
STEP 2 - processing the picture with tape
The next step is to “laminate” the surface of the picture with tape. This must be done carefully so that waves and folds do not form on the surface of the paper.
Scotch sticks only on one side of the picture(from the front, see Fig. 2). Be sure to smooth the surface with an old calendar or plastic card so that the tape sticks well to the paper with the picture ( this is a very important detail).
By the way, it is undesirable for the size of your picture to be larger than the width of the tape. Of course, you can try to glue the tape “overlapping” (this is when one strip of tape lies partially on top of another) - but the final result may not be so great...
Rice. 2. The surface of the picture is covered with tape on one side.
STEP 3 - cut out the picture
Now you need to cut out the picture (ordinary scissors will do). The picture, by the way, is cut out to the final size (i.e. this will already be the final size of the sticker).
In Fig. 3 shows what happened for me.
Rice. 3. the picture is cut out
STEP 4 - water treatment
The last step is to treat our workpiece with warm water. This is done quite simply: put the picture in a cup of warm water (or even just hold it under running tap water).
After about a minute, the back surface of the picture (which is not treated with tape) will be well wet and you can easily begin to remove it with your fingers (you just need to gently rub the surface of the paper). There is no need to use any kind of scrapers!
As a result, almost all the paper will be removed, and the picture itself (and a very bright one) will remain on the tape. Now all you have to do is wipe and dry the sticker (you can wipe it with a regular towel).
The resulting sticker has a number of advantages:
It is not afraid of water (waterproof), which means it can be glued to a bicycle, motorcycle, etc.;
When dry, the sticker adheres very well and sticks to almost any surface: iron, paper (including cardboard), wood, plastic, etc.;
The sticker is quite wear-resistant;
Does not fade or fade in the sun (at least for a year or two);
And lastly: the cost of its production is extremely low: one sheet of A4 - 2 rubles, a piece of adhesive tape (a few kopecks). Finding a sticker at this price in a store is almost impossible...
PS
Thus, at home, without having any special equipment. equipment, you can make fairly high-quality stickers (if you get your hands on them, you won’t be able to tell them apart from store-bought ones).
That's all for me. I would appreciate any additions.
Good luck with your images!
We'll talk about the barcode. Now it’s impossible to imagine a product without it.
A barcode is a kind of product passport; you can use it to find out everything from the price to the country of origin. A small graphic code applied to the packaging or label carries up to several pages of information processed by special reading devices.
First of all, a barcode is simply irreplaceable in trade. Now, many stores have implemented an automated system to which computer cash registers with bar code readers are connected, and the presence of a bar code on all products on the sales floor allows you to reduce the time it takes to serve customers at the checkout counters. The store manager just needs to hold the scanner over the barcode label and all the necessary information that is linked to it will be on the monitor. This approach greatly simplifies the organization of many business processes in trade and logistics.
The barcode is applied either during the production of the packaging itself using a printing method, or using self-adhesive labels or stickers.
Special scanners for reading barcodes illuminate the image with a special illuminator and read the resulting image, which is converted into original information.
Since the barcode is located on a label that not only carries information about the product, but also attracts the consumer’s attention to it, it naturally must fit into its design. If, say, a label is made in a certain color scheme, say in red or blue, and the barcode is black, it will stand out from the general style, be disharmonious and make the appearance of the label or sticker repulsive. That is why, when creating their own label, customers specify the color of the barcode in advance. And here the main thing to remember is that not all color combinations are read by the scanner. There are color combinations that the scanner cannot read.
In order for the barcode on your label or sticker to be readable, you need to know which color combinations are read by the scanner and which are not.
COLOR COMBINATIONS READ BY SCANNER
ARE READED UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS
NOT COUNTED UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS
COLOR COMBINATIONS NOT READABLE BY THE SCANNER
And a few more simple rules to ensure that the barcode on your label or packaging is placed most conveniently for reading, in order to avoid anything that can obscure or damage it, which will reduce not only the quality, speed, and efficiency of reading, but also your profit.
1. Check the location of your barcode on the product by comparing it with similar packaging. Is it easy for a cashier to find it when moving from item to item?
2. Move your hand over the barcode like a scanner. This will allow you to understand if the barcode placement is causing unnatural hand movement when scanning it.
3. Using a regular pen, draw a line across the entire barcode, as if imitating a scanner beam, you will see whether there are any obstacles or damage in its texture.
If you label your products, ignoring the requirements for image quality and placement of barcode symbols, this will not only lead to the inability to read barcodes with all the ensuing consequences (failures in accounting, settlement, logistics systems; penalties; financial losses, etc. .), but also to undermine the reputation of these goods, and therefore their manufacturers.
Take care of your reputation and the reputation of your company and products. Good luck with your sales.
Any user of an Android mobile device has at least once heard of QR codes. Their idea is similar to conventional barcodes: data is encrypted into a two-dimensional code in the form of an image, after which it can be read by a special device. You can encrypt any text into a QR code. You will learn how to scan such codes in this article.
The main and most popular way to decipher QR codes is to use special applications for Android. They use a phone camera, which, when you point it at a code, automatically scans and decrypts the data.
Method 1: Barcode Scanner (ZXing Team)
Scanning a QR code using the Barcode Scanner app is quite easy. When you open the program, the scanner will automatically launch using your smartphone's camera. You need to point it at the code to decrypt the data.
Method 2: QR and barcode scanner (Gamma Play)
The process of scanning a QR code using this application is no different from the first method. You need to launch the application and point the camera at the required code, after which the necessary information will appear.
Method 3: Online services
If for some reason it is not possible to use special software or a camera, then you can turn to special sites that provide the ability to decipher QR codes. However, you will still have to take a photo or save the image of the code to a memory card. To decrypt, you need to upload the file with the code to the site and start the process.
One such site is IMGonline. Its list of features includes many functions, including QR code and barcode recognition.
After you have placed the image with the code in your phone’s memory, follow this algorithm:
In addition to IMGOnline, there are other online services that allow you to complete this process.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are different ways to scan and decipher QR codes. For quick processing, special applications that use the phone camera are best suited. If you don’t have access to them, you can use special online services.
The basis of any printing shop is printing equipment. Equipment for the production of stickers is the most popular and in demand equipment in the enterprise.
The simplest device for producing stickers is an electronic scale in a supermarket, which weighs goods while simultaneously printing a price tag. This type of technique is called template technology because it is designed to print only one type of sticker.
At a professional printing enterprise, an order for a large number of stickers containing several colors in their image is executed on offset printing machines. This is the most common type of technology, characterized by high quality prints and high speed.
For small print runs, it makes sense to use silk-screening equipment to produce stickers. In this case, the transfer of text or image to the main material occurs from the printed grid (special form). The paint, being pressed through microscopic cells, remains on the paper in the form of a given pattern. This printing method is called silk-screen printing. High-quality printing of stickers is guaranteed when using no more than three colors.
To produce a minimum number of self-adhesive stickers, you can use simple office equipment. The printer for producing stickers can be inkjet or laser. The base is paper with adhesive backing such as Orakal or Xerox with a matte or glossy surface. The color palette is represented by a wide variety of shades, so laser printing can be done in black and white.
We make stickers (Although, it’s better to buy them):
Method one.
First you need to prepare a drawing. You can draw it by hand or on the computer. Handmade stickers are unique in their uniqueness, but in a computer drawing it will be easier for you to make changes or resize the sketch. You can combine both methods - draw by hand, and then scan or, as a last resort, photograph with a digital camera.
You can print on plain paper. If you use colored, bright paper, the stickers will look more attractive. To reproduce drawings, a regular photocopier will do. Next we glue it with any glue. Of course, you should choose glue depending on the surface on which you are going to glue your drawing. In most cases, regular office glue or PVA glue is suitable. If you have a large sticker, wallpaper glue and a roller will do.
The disadvantage of such stickers is that they are very susceptible to external influences - they are not resistant to moisture, and drawings made with a pen or markers very quickly discolor (fade) or blur.
Method two. An alternative to glue.
Suitable for small size stickers. We create a drawing on paper in an arbitrary way - and as a means of fixation we use double-sided tape, one side of which is glued to the back of the drawing, the second - to the wall.
Method three. Lamination.
In order for your sticker to be less susceptible to external factors (dampness, mechanical damage such as scratching and paint peeling), we need to protect the front surface of the design. At home, transparent tape is ideal for this purpose. The wider the tape, the fewer “seams” there will be in the drawing. To avoid air getting under the tape, start gluing from one side rather than gluing the entire strip at once. When applying tape, smooth it with a ruler, plastic card or any other object with a hard, even edge.
You can also use a special transparent thermal film for lamination; you can buy it in almost any office supply store. Place it on the surface of the design with the adhesive side and simply iron it with an iron.
Method four. Self-adhesive paper.
For paper, you can use self-adhesive paper or special decorative self-adhesive paper "Oracal". We apply the drawing on plain paper in the usual way. In the case of Oracal paper, the situation is a little different.
This paper has a smooth, glossy surface, so regular pen, ink or paint will be useless here. Draw with gel pens or special markers for glass (permanent) or CDs. There are many more ways to apply images to Oracal, which can be found experimentally. You can, for example, try to make an application with the same “Oracal” in a different color.
Method five.
If you have a printer at home, buy special adhesive paper for the printer at the store. And just print the drawing
