Basic Shape Stickers (in illustrator)

Video Tutorial -- Follows all steps of the guide (you may need to pause or rewind).

Square or Rectangular stickers, no illustrator required. Also covers printing instructions. 

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This Tutorial

Geometric (Circles & Polygons) or Hand-Traced (pen tool)

Generated Bubble Outline (follows contours of image)

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The Basics:

Step 1:

First, download and install Adobe Illustrator.

It is free for Chapman staff, students, and faculty!

Step 2:

Next, download the swatch library.

This swatch, once applied to a shape/stroke, will tell the machine to cut along the line.

!!  IMPORTANT  !!

In order to prep your sticker, you NEED to download the Roland Versaworks Swatch Library. 

For Windows Users

 You can also copy and paste this path in the top of your file explorer:

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator 2024\Presets\en_US\Swatches

For Mac Users

Starting in Illustrator

Welcome to Adobe Illustrator! 

2. Import your image using File > Place or copy and paste it in. Move the image to the top-left corner.

With your image selected, click the Embed button on the bottom right of your window. It will change to Unembed, which is what we want to see. 

If it's already embedded, then you do not need to change anything. 

This ensures that if you open the file on another computer, your image will come with it. Otherwise, your image may become grainy and lower quality.

Making a Border

Option 1: geometry tools

Use one of the Geometry tools (Rectangle, Ellipse, etc) to make a border around your image. 

Select, then click and drag on the canvas to create. Use [Shift] to make perfect squares and circles etc.

2. Adjusting position

Once your shape is made, use the Pointer tool to adjust it, repositioning and editing the size. TIP: use 'v' to shortcut to the pointer tool.

Option 2: Pen tools

Use the Pen Tool to draw a line around your image as you see fit. 

With the Pen Tool selected (nib icon without line), click to make Anchor Points, which will create lines between themselves. Once you've traced around your image, finish your shape by clicking on the first Anchor Point you make, thus enclosing your path. (example: Top panther)

You can also use the Curvature tool (nib icon WITH line) to create smooth curves interpolating between points, but we recommend starting with the standard pen tool. 

  Tip! Change your path in the Appearance menu if you're having a hard time seeing it-- you may also need to turn off the Fill, as it can hide your image as you work. 

To curve these lines, there are 3 methods: 

First, you can create curves with the Pen Tool itself by clicking and dragging when making a point. You'll see the line you just made curves in response to how far and what direction you drag-- and a long handle sticks out of the Anchor point. This is called a Bezier handle, and we'll talk about them more later. You can always change them by clicking and dragging around the handle.
 (example: bottom panther) 

 You can also create curves with the Direct Select tool and the Anchor Tool, which both also have other unique capabilities. 

2-A: Direct Select

The Direct Select tool is best used for rearranging individual Anchor points. With this tool selected, you can click and drag to move individual Anchor points instead of the whole path. Use this to refine edges or correct misplaced points. 

You can also use it to round out hard edges. Click on an Anchor Point. you should see a small red circle appear next to it. By clicking and dragging this circle, you can round out the point. (This transforms the single Anchor Point into two curving points. More technically, this curved edge is being controlled by the Bezier Handles on these points-- more on that below.)

You can use this method on multiple points at a time. Simply click and drag over your desired selection, or hold Shift while clicking on points to add them to your selection. Using the red circle handle will curve them all equally and simultaneously. 

2-B: Anchor Point Tool

The Anchor Point tool specializes in controlling curves-- or more specifically, Bezier Handles, of anchor points. Bezier Handles are very powerful tools; with them, you can make any kind of curve you need. 

Access it by right-clicking on the Pen Tool to bring up the sub-menu, and clicking on the icon (an inverted V) (Tip! any tool icon with a small white triangle in the bottom-right corner means it has a sub-menu of similar tools. Poke around sometime!)

Now although the APT (for short) may let you control Bezier Handles with ease, those handles don't always show up automatically. Points that "are curved" usually already have Bezier handles-- as these are necessary to create curves-- but if your point isn't showing handles, you'll need to make them.
With the APT, click and drag on any anchor point. The handles will appear and the point should immediately start to round out-- as the handles are pulling it into a curve.
When created this way, each end of the handle can be controlled individually. If this isn't working, there are 2 likely solutions: 1) hold the ALT key while handling the Bezier. This will "split" the handles. (Curves made by the Pen Tool may need this treatment) or 2) Click on the curve you wish to change. the Bezier handles bracketing it should appear (Illustrator often separates by Curves, not by Points)

The Pen tool and it's associates (Direct Select, Anchor Point, Curvature) are all very useful, but they are a bit complex! Don't worry if you need a bit of practice to get the hang of them. 

Prepping the File

Here we'll set up the stickers to be cut out by the Printer-Cutter. It's essential you set up your images correctly or they will not be cut out.

Appearance Tab

(if this isn't showing, enable it from the Windows tab, at top)

Be sure to open this up!

We will mostly be dealing with the STROKE property, which is the outline of your sticker-- the cut path. It is the literal path the blade will take. 

  

2. Select the magenta color, aka Cut Contour. The "normal" RGB or CMYK magenta will not substitute, it must be Cut Contour. It should then appear in the recently used library for your further convenience.

3. Cut Contour should apply to the stroke-- but if not, reselect the stroke and try again. (Be sure to set the fill to empty, as seen here.)

The Cut Contour color has a white corner with a dot in it. If you do not see that then you have not selected the correct color!

   

Stroke

1. Set the Stroke width to 0.01 or something similarly small

Your image should look something like this.

If you need the stroke a little wider for visibility, that's okay, but keeping it thin is helpful for judging accuracy.

 

Cropping Canvas

When you import your file into the Printer-Cutter software, it will organize in chunks, determined by the size of the artboard. Thus, to nest your designs most efficiently, You'll need to crop your document.

Resize it by going to File > Document Setup > Edit Artboards, in the top right. You can also access this feature using the Artboard Tool on the left toolbar.

For multiple stickers like this, you must put them in either separate files or separate artboards!

Go from this....

....To this!

You will have to make the same number of copies of each of these. If you want different amounts of each sticker, save them as two separate files. See the nesting section at the bottom of the page.

 

Time to print

Once you're ready to print, be sure to brush up on the Versaworks printing instructions (scroll to bottom of page)

Remember: the free daily limit is 60mm for matt/glossy vinyl. All other material prices can be checked here.

Still Have Questions? Ask The Staff!