How much bleed do stickers need?
| Bleed | 0.125 in / 3 mm past cut line |
|---|---|
| Safe zone | 0.125 in / 3 mm inside cut line |
| Cut tolerance | ±0.1 mm (Summa OPOS) |
| Minimum text size | 6 pt for legibility |
Why bleed exists
Vinyl stretches slightly, rolls advance a hair unevenly, and blades have a physical kerf. If your background color stops exactly at the cut line, any drift at all leaves a thin unprinted white edge. Extending the background 1/8 inch past the line means the blade always cuts through printed material.
Setting it up
Illustrator: File, Document Setup, set Bleed to 0.125 in on all sides, then extend background elements to the red bleed line.
Photoshop: Make the canvas 0.25 in larger than the final size in both dimensions (0.125 on each side) and extend the background to the canvas edge.
Canva: Resize the design to final size, then in Download enable "Crop marks and bleed".
The safe zone matters just as much
Anything within 1/8 inch of the cut line risks being clipped. Logos with a tight border, text that hugs the edge, and thin outline frames are the usual casualties. Frames in particular look obviously crooked if the cut lands 0.5 mm off center, so we recommend pulling any border at least 1/4 inch in.
Do not have bleed?
Send the file anyway. Our prepress team can extend most backgrounds cleanly, mirror the edge pixels, or add a small white keyline border. We will show you what we did in the proof.