Does anyone have experience making zines and stickers at home? Is there a printer you’d recommend?
I’m currently eyeing an Epson EcoTank (the ET-8550 A3, specifically). I’ll also need a cutting...
I have a lot of sticker rxperience at this point.
Cricut maker is a great machine for home projects and small to medium scale. If youre making more than say 50 2-3 inch stickers per batch youre going to maybe want a bigger machine. The prep process is still very manual and a 8.5x11 sticker paper only prints 6-8 depending on shape and if youre good at tetris. It also generates a lot of waste as it needs pretty big margins. Overall its a really really good machine for what it CAN do, just know the limitations. Takes some getting used to but once you've got it dialed in its pretty reliable for small scale production.
I also have an ecotank but a lower model (ET8300 or someting. super cheap). The fact it was so cheap and can hold so much ink and not use cartridges is mostly worth the rest of the shittyness of the printer. High quality prints but its slow, has trouble printing like 4 or 5 full color pages back to back without splotching, and prints "wet" (nature of ink jet and better paper probably would help). It jams a lot with sticker paper and build quality is meh at best.
For stickers a one sided laminating machine is very time saving (est 30-40% saved). I do it manually with contact lamination and rollers but it takes WAY too long. Haven't found a good one sided laminator so lmk if you do...
Cricut maker is a great machine for home projects and small to medium scale. If youre making more than say 50 2-3 inch stickers per batch youre going to maybe want a bigger machine. The prep process is still very manual and a 8.5x11 sticker paper only prints 6-8 depending on shape and if youre good at tetris. It also generates a lot of waste as it needs pretty big margins. Overall its a really really good machine for what it CAN do, just know the limitations. Takes some getting used to but once you've got it dialed in its pretty reliable for small scale production.
I also have an ecotank but a lower model (ET8300 or someting. super cheap). The fact it was so cheap and can hold so much ink and not use cartridges is mostly worth the rest of the shittyness of the printer. High quality prints but its slow, has trouble printing like 4 or 5 full color pages back to back without splotching, and prints "wet" (nature of ink jet and better paper probably would help). It jams a lot with sticker paper and build quality is meh at best.
For stickers a one sided laminating machine is very time saving (est 30-40% saved). I do it manually with contact lamination and rollers but it takes WAY too long. Haven't found a good one sided laminator so lmk if you do...
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