9 Steps to Creating Stunning Designs for Custom Stamps

Ultimately the key to a great personalised stamp image is simplicity, high resolution, colour planning and design consideration. With this in mind, to ensure your custom stamp meets your expectations it's essential to have a design that is suited to stamp production requirements. Here are 8 steps to help you design the perfect personalised stamp design.

1. KIS - Keep It Simple. 
   Simple designs work best. The finer the detail, the more challenging it is to produce a clean, crisp impression.
2. Avoid detailed patterns: Fine lines and small, intricate details can be easily lost in a stamp impression because self-inking custom stamps use liquid ink, so the impression will slightly spread. The amount of spread is influenced by the absorbency of the paper used – in particular, low cost and recycled paper have high absorbency. Stamp lightly on these papers to reduce the amount of ink that contacts with the paper.
3. Use bold, clear fonts: Simple fonts provide the best clarity. Avoid thin and decorative fonts with fine lines as do not print well. As an example Arial will work perfectly whereas Times New Roman with its thin lines will be less clear. We recommend a minimum of 7 point size.
4. Avoid shading and gradients: Stamp designs are basically monochrome images and so shadows boxes will blend into the design and 3D designs will appear 2D.
5. Keep lines to a minimum: lines should be a minimum of 1pt line thickness
6. Minimise shaded / filled areas: Stamps do not always print 100% of the area. The impression will be a typical ‘stamped’ style. We recommend you avoid large solid areas and consider inverting graphics in your design i.e. turn white text in a black square to black text in a ‘white’ square with a keyline border.
7. Check Sizes and Proportions: Take into account the size and proportions of your stamp’s printable area and ensure your image fits within the dimensions.
8. Use all the available area: Unlike print files, custom stamps do not require a bleed/safety margin – the design can extend to the edge of the available area. 
9. Stamp grids / tables requirements: We specialise in this kind of design. Minimise the number of lines in the design and ensure there is enough room for data entry in each box / line. We always send a sized proof for this type of design so you print it to check for usability. Please upload / enter the text for the stamp grid content so we can copy and paste it into place and also provide a scanned sketch or photo of the layout to show how you want the grid formatted.

If you have any special instructions, you can enter them in the you can enter them in the “Special instructions” field on the product page.

Free Proofing Service - We provide sized proofs by email for all our large stamps and any designs that are more than simple text/images. 

Finally, if you are unsure if your design will work on a personalised stamp or need any help, please do contact us for advice.