To avoid cracking and weathering, only good quality vinyl stock should be used for bin stickers.
Generally a 3 year manufacturers guarantee is the minimum requirement.
Offset printing on polyethylene or polypropylene vinyls is cheaper than screen printing on quality vinyl but the resulting signs have very limited life when exposed to the elements
- they should be avoided, except where a sticker only needs to be used for a few months.
Don't use fluoro coloured vinyls - they fade quickly.
Fading is an important issue with printing inks. Only UV inks should be used on bin stickers.
Process inks are cheaper but have a very short life in the outdoors (reds, blues and yellows will often fade completely in less than a year!)
A thick layer of ink is an important factor in fade-proofing - this can only be achieved by screen printing.
Screen printing is more expensive than offset printing, but it is the only way to avoid your
stickers becoming illegible after, say, 12 months exposure.
Even normally short-lived colours like orange or light blue will have adequate life-spans when screen printed using UV inks.
Although the colours should not be varied, the designs are not set in stone - they don't have the force of law.
We expect that users will vary the designs both for aesthetic and information reasons.
For instance, you've probably noticed that the 'Garbage' sign has two forms, one with reversed and one with unreversed type.
There is no special requirement about this, and we expect that users will take the basic elements and experiment freely
(keeping in mind that comprehensibility and legibility are the primary considerations).
You may for instance, feel the aesthetic need to alter the arrangement of colours. For instance -
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instead of -
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You might also wish to include logos, translations, sponsors details or additional instructions.
Just keep these points in mind...
Our research consisted of 87 interviews with members of the public, conducted in public places.
They were shown a range of possible designs and rated them according to comprehensibility.
Some of the findings should be kept in mind if you are developing new signs -
- illustrations should be relatively realistic;
- the top element of the sign (i.e. the most conspicuous and first seen) should be the illustrated materials,
since this is what the audience recognised most easily;
- the moebius loop should appear below the illustrated materials (i.e. the next element seen) since it was found to be much less comprehensible than the illustrations;
- the text should be as large as possible.
P.S. Remember to test your new designs for comprehensibility (even if you just show them around the office).
