Just wanted to throw this out there. I've got a vinyl cutter and can cut up to 10"x36", anything you want. I've got a good selection of colors. I don't like doing big runs of things because I get really bored, but I really enjoy smaller projects. Let me know if you're interested! I don't know if there's a 'vinyl guy' around here already and I'm not looking to step on anyone's toes, I mostly just do this as a hobby. You won't pay for much more than the vinyl and 15min of my time. I'll post some pictures of my 'work' later if anyone's interested. Here's a first crack at some pricing structure. Base cost (quote, setup, equipment, etc) - $2/design Labor (design, conversion to vector art, cutting/weeding time) - $10/hr Material cost - $0.05/sqin Pricing is negotiable based on volume, size and demand. Expect to pay less than what I've posted. Give me an idea of what you want to do (pictures help), I'll send a quote and once we agree on a cost, it won't change, regardless of how long it takes me. Here's a sticker I did for a local euro guy. He wanted 10 of them and we made it $25. He had the design but I had to trace it in illustrator. Sticker is about 8x3in.
Yes those rules are there to help the seller and community... Were not building homes. Maybe nice baseline price setup would be helpful.
Sorry guys, let me come up with something generic that makes sense for pricing. I'll be back in a bit.
what do you use to design your designs? because would the price be different if i could design it myself in autocad?
I was looking for something to memorialize my old car. I would want it put on the lid of my STI wing. I would want the "Mazdaspeed" lettering to be proper font and if possible a cartoon style image of the car (without the smily face). Something like the following... In memory of Mazdaspeed Protege#2534 <<<this font in memory of MSP# 2534 I loved that car, had it for 6 years, was my first modded car.
I use illustrator. If you were able to create an .eps or .ai file, I could probably make it work. Otherwise, a hi-res .jpg makes it very easy for me to trace quickly. We're talking a couple minutes. Depending on the complexity, a hi-res, single color (black) .jpg can work best. I should note that the labor cost is a ballpark, I'm not gonna round up or anything like that, just estimate. All one color? Give me an idea on size and I'll whip something up for you to take a look at.
could you do something like this with out the subaru emblem in it. 14" L 1" letter height and 7/8" space between the lettering in white maybe gold or a neon green, hell price for all three colors. someone keeps taking my plastic letters off my car
Does it need all of the colors? Definitely, I'll get back to you tonight. Of the three things you mentioned (length, height and spacing) is there something that's driving those? Typically, I would just use the logo size ratio. That said, I'm not sure what it is. I'll check after work.
^^i was just measuring the letters on the back of my car and that's what the dimensions came out to be, so i wanted to keep it "stock" looking but not as easy to take off.
Umm You can try, and what you've done so far is pretty good, but it's hard to put a base price onto any of this stuff. Sure, you can say that a little sticker that's about 3X3 goes for 2-5 dollars, but then people are going to ask you for really hard stuff. Layering vinyl is HARD work and it's worth more than 5 ****ing dollars, especially of your time. Take it from someone who has been doing this for a year or so now, you can quote prices all damn day long, but you won't be able to give a flat rate. I think for this type of situation we will allow a "call for consultation" - it really is all dependent on the sticker you want made. My suggestion would be to do what we did, make a bunch of little things you know people will want out of scrap and sell THAT for 5 bucks. Keep the option open to make your own prices for customs, so then you don't end up doing a 5X10 layered vinyl image for 5 bucks when it's worth at least 15. Also labor costs should be figured at the end of your job, telling people you charge 10 bucks an hour (when some things take like 15 minutes) will deter customers. Is this the rainbow colored one? I'm not sure what you are asking for, do you have a picture of what the finished product should look like?
Thanks for the advice. I've been cutting vinyl for 4 years or so just doing odd jobs. I know that it's impossible to have a flat rate and that's why I didn't bother. Obviously, more difficult things will be more expensive. People can tell me what they want, I'll tell them how much it will cost them to have me do it and if that doesn't work, then the transaction just won't happen. The fact is, I could just make tons of generic stuff and sell it on eBay and whatnot, but I'm not doing this for the money, I do it as a hobby. If I can provide some cool stuff to people in the process, great. The $10/hr, again, it's a number that I had to make up. Like I said, I've been doing this for 4 years or so and have a very good idea of how long everything takes me. We'll settle on a price beforehand and it's as simple as that. I suppose I'll make a couple of small things and then keep the option open for custom stuff, like you mentioned. I just didn't realize that I'd have to do that in order to circumvent the rules here. Just let me know what flies and what doesn't and I'll be happy to adhere! Those of you that have requested quotes, I'll get back at you tonight.
What you've got is fine. Maybe next time we need to take a trip to Midwest we'll have you tag along For those of us who like doing this as a hobby it's like going to the biggest candy store, but you are given a catalog and have to choose what kind of candy you want. I have to go back soon, all this scrap and I have very little orange. I assume you use Flexi and Illustrator, then, yes?
no,no just "subaru" one white, one gold, and one neon green. not rainbow just 3 "subaru" logos. Just unsure what color i will like best.
For auto-x magnets you are better off just laying a vinyl number on the sheet and cutting them out with a razor. To be honest with you, I'd never waste a plotter blade on cutting a few numbers out of magnet material. The cost and time involved isn't worth the income from it to keep it competitive. You could probably save a few bucks and just buy the material, have either the OP or Aegis/myself cut the numbers out of raw black stock and lay it on the magnet material, and use an xacto to trim the numbers out of it. Also, to Bielke and ofspunk, you cannot put a base price or cost. What he has listed as hourly rates and material cost is about as good as you are going to get for pricing. There are no flat rates. If you set a flat rate for a size without setting a rate for hourly time, then you get people like Lowrider asking for a 7 color daffy duck image for the listed size price, which is absurd since you have to cut the image 7 times and then spend the time multilayering it. But if you set hte price for a 10 layer image as the base cost, then you arent' going to get much business from people that want a single color image. And nobody has the time to sit and give you dimensional cost for each possible layering of the image at each possible dimension.
It would be the equivalent of telling the MTKA Subaru Parts department to post the price of every single part you could ever possibly sell in a thread before you are allowed to sell anything. It just isn't feasible to list all possible prices for vinyl jobs because there is way too much variance from job to job. Want an idea of how much variance there is, sit in our plotter room some time while I make Ice Race vinyls. For the current theme, I can rack out single color, 4' x 2' basic blood splatter looking images in about 10 minutes per piece...while a 18"x24" 3 color roadkill cartoon animal takes me about an hour and a half and uses 3 18"x24" sheets of different colored vinyl to accomplish. The variance there already is one job takes 10 minutes to cut/weed/tape and uses one 2x4 cut of vinyl and the other has to be cut/weed/taped 3 times in 3 different colors using 3 cuts of vinyl, then the whole thing has to be hand laid on a light table, these take over an hour or more....more material, more time, but the overall size of the finished sticker is 1/2 the size of the less complicated one. So you can't go by set price by size, since the 1/2 size sticker uses probably 2-3 times as much material and takes almost 10 times as long to complete.
Yup. I'm not entirely sure who that's directed at, but I know darn well that it's impossible to lay out pricing accurately, I just did my best and it's all subject to change.
It's directed at the moderators that posted in here. No worries man, I am sure you are more than aware of the pricing difficulties.
Oh no.. a voice of reason... ha ha ha Yes there are others like Aegis / Readymixx that do vinyl and Gearhead Graphics.. but its America.. It IS STILL a Capitalist country for now.. so who cares if you step on toes... no different then 5 different people saying they can do your brakes, or suspension or ????? whatever on here... It is always good to have other options.... that airbag sticker looked good.
Haha, thanks. Here's another example of my work for a euro car club. Also, all quotes were sent, thanks for the business! And another job that I did for the eurowerks.org car show last year.
