In these uncertain times, restaurants have been able to quickly adapt to and work around new challenges brought on by COVID-19. This requires implementing new policies and communicating them to customers at the drop of a hat. 

Stickers are a simple solution that restaurants can use to patch over a number of operational challenges brought on by COVID-19, especially when it comes to takeout. With DIY design services, restaurants can create and print customized sticker and food labels to brand their packaging, label takeout orders, communicate safety policies, mark off social distancing spots and much more. Stickers are a small product, but they come with some huge benefits. 

Here are a dozen ways stickers can help your restaurant survive COVID-19:

Brand your takeout

Customizing stickers with your logo makes branding your takeout cheap and easy. Rather than order all-new packaging, you can simply stick your logo onto the bag before sending it out the door. Stickers can turn every takeout order into an opportunity to better establish your brand in your customers’ eyes.

Label your grab-n-go

Stickers make it easy to identify takeout items and highlight their specific features. 

Communicate safety policies

Direct customers to proper entrances and exits, remind patrons to wear a mask, and more with safety message stickers. Stick your safety stickers on your doors, windows, menus, bathroom mirrors - anywhere customers will see them and get the message.

Mark off social distancing spots

If your restaurant or business tends to have a line, whether it’s for a table, the checkout, or a bathroom, you can let customers know where to stand and safely social distance with stickers. Customize the sticker with your own social distancing language, measure out six feet between each spot, and stick them on the ground for an easy visual cue for your customers. 

Attach order numbers and names

Tag each takeout order with the customer’s name and name of the dish or drink. This makes it easy to keep all your outgoing orders organized so they get to the correct customer.

“We had a lot of success when we started offering to-go cocktails. We’d put on a sticker on them to designate the cocktail type and name on the order,” says Eric Peterson, owner of the North County Restaurant Group which oversees five restaurants across Northern California. 

Provide date labels

Mark your takeout orders with dates for Use By, Best By, and Made On. If you stick a label onto the order, then you can easily write down the date information with a pen or sharpie when you prepare or ship the order. 

Takeout serving instructions

Not all takeout travels or reheats the same. Include a label with instructions on how to best serve and enjoy your food to give your customers the best experience with your restaurant and food. 

Special delivery instructions

Make note of any specific requests, write them down on the sticker label, and attach them to the order. This lets your driver know how to best deliver the food, and ensures that your customers receives the order in the manner they wanted.

Display QR codes

More and more restaurants are turning to QR codes as way to promote touchless ordering in the dining room. With custom stickers, you can post your QR codes up around your restaurant for easy scanning and touchless ordering. Add them to takeout materials, posters, flyers, table tents, business cards and more! 

Seal up your packaging

A custom sticker seal secures your takeout and lets customers know that their order hasn’t been tampered with or opened. In these times of heightened focus on food safety, it’s important to go the extra mile to establish that trust with your customers. 

Mark items up (or down) 

Quickly change the price on items to mark them up or down with price tag stickers. This makes it easy to pivot if certain items are selling better or worse than you expected. And with restaurant capacity so limited, maximizing your margins has never been more important. 

Designate deals

Easily label certain products as “On Sale” or “Specials” to highlight popular items or try and move inventory that’s not selling well.


Source
MARK PLUMLEE

4 min read

​Custom Sticker Printing can be a fun and effective way to advertise your business. There are lots of different ways that you can incorporate printed stickers into your branding strategies, from fun freebies to innovative product labelling. Let’s take a look at some of the ways you can use custom stickers to promote your business.

5 Ways To Use Custom Sticker Printing To Capture Customers
 
Customers as Brand Ambassadors
Giving away custom stickers to your customers and prospects is a great way to transform them into instant brand ambassadors for your business. Consider including them in your shipped orders or invoices. Alternatively keep them in your point of sale area for people to grab as they make their purchase. Customers will stick them on their water bottles, bicycles or laptops if the design is just right, and you’ve instantly got a travelling advertisement for your brand!

Custom Stickers as Product Labelling
Custom sticker printing is a great option for product labelling and product packaging. Whether you need labels for your micro-brew or lotion bottles or seals for product packaging there are a range of options to suit your needs. 

Creative Business Cards
A custom sticker can be a great alternative to a standard business card. After a networking event people often go home with a stack of cards, often not remembering which card belonged to which person. But if yours is the only sticker in the bunch? Instant recognition! Stickers can be laser cut into virtually any shape or size so they’re a great creative choice.

Shipping Label Stickers
When you have an eCommerce business, custom sticker printing can be a great way to boost brand exposure. Create branded shipping labels that you can write your customer’s address on, or even just add branded stickers to the box or parcel. With branded packaging, your customers will know they’re getting something from your business the instant they see the box.

Instant Promotional Products
If you’re interested in creating some promotional products for your business, but don’t have a big budget, stickers are a great option. Pop some stickers on a box of chocolates, or a notebook and bam: instant promotional product.

Want to get some custom stickers to help promote your brand? 

In lieu of our 7th anniversary, we are going to give Birthday Rewards to selected existing customers only, for birthday girls and birthday boys from 1st August 2020 till 31st July 2021. 

Please be informed that you ought to login (www.printlab.com.my) and update your date of birth, full name, delivery address and phone number. 
The due date for updating your contact information is 15 August 2020. 

Below are the details of Birthday Rewards:  
- You will receive 1 voucher for FREE 80 pieces of 3R Gloss Laminated Photo Prints & Delivery, worth more than RM48.00 (Include free delivery to your doorstep).
- The voucher will be delivered through email.
- You will receive the email voucher based on your birthday month. For example, if your birthday month is in November, then you will receive
the email voucher in November.
- The email voucher is valid for 28 days only.
- Each photos size is 3R (3.5 inch x 5 inch)

How to redeem?  
Step 1: Click on the birthday rewards redemption link which we will email to you.
Step 2: Select the "80 pieces of 3R Gloss Laminated Photo Prints"  item into the shopping cart.
Step 3: Before check out, enter the birthday rewards code that you received via email and confirm the order.
Totally free print & delivery to you, is a true birthday gift to you, no hidden charges.
We will email the steps on how to upload your 80 photos in the email voucher.

Terms & Conditions:
- Only for selected existing customers only (More than one year), new register customers are not entitled.
- Customers are entitled to one redemption only. 
- This birthday rewards voucher entitles customers to enjoy totally free 80 pieces of 3R Gloss Laminated Photo Prints & Delivery.
- Delivery of goods or services are handled by Printlab.
- This order has no cash value, is not for resale and is not redeemable for cash.
- This  birthday rewards redemption cannot be used in conjunction with any other discount, promotional code, gift certificate, group buy, voucher and
coupon.
- Once the code has been redeemed, it will not be accepted for another order.  
- Customers should liaise directly with Printlab on delivery inquiries.    
- Printlab management reserves all rights to amend any condition of this voucher without prior notice.
- Rewards are not exchangeable for cash, not exchangeable for other Rewards under any circumstances. Printlab reserves the right, without prior notice, to immediately deactivate vouchers found to be exchanged or transferred for value.

For any further inquiry or clarification, you may call +6011-10822168 or whatsapp Printlab Customer Service at +6011-10822168.

The subject of what separates art and design is convoluted and has been debated for a long time.
Artists and designers both create visual compositions using a shared knowledge base, but their reasons for doing so are entirely different.
Some designers consider themselves artists, but few artists consider themselves designers.
So what exactly is the difference between art and design? In this post, we’ll examine and compare some of the core principles of each craft.
This is a subject that people have strong opinions about, and I’m looking forward to reading the various points of view in the comments.
This post isn’t a definitive guide, but rather the starting point for a conversation, so let’s be open-minded!

Perhaps the most fundamental difference between art and design that we can all agree on is their purposes.
Typically, the process of creating a work of art starts with nothing, a blank canvas. A work of art stems from a view or opinion or feeling that the artist holds within him or herself.
They create the art to share that feeling with others, to allow the viewers to relate to it, learn from it or be inspired by it.
The most renowned (and successful) works of art today are those that establish the strongest emotional bond between the artist and their audience.
By contrast, when a designer sets out to create a new piece, they almost always have a fixed starting point, whether a message, an image, an idea or an action.
The designer’s job isn’t to invent something new, but to communicate something that already exists, for a purpose.
That purpose is almost always to motivate the audience to do something: buy a product, use a service, visit a location, learn certain information. The most successful designs are those that most effectively communicate their message and motivate their consumers to carry out a task.

Another difference between art and design is how the messages of each are interpreted by their respective audiences.
Although an artist sets out to convey a viewpoint or emotion, that is not to say that the viewpoint or emotion has a single meaning.
Art connects with people in different ways, because it’s interpreted differently.
Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa has been interpreted and discussed for many years. Just why is she smiling? Scientists say it’s an illusion created by your peripheral vision. Romantics say she is in love. Skeptics say there is no reason. None of them are wrong.
Design is the very opposite. Many will say that if a design can be “interpreted” at all, it has failed in its purpose.
The fundamental purpose of design is to communicate a message and motivate the viewer to do something.
If your design communicates a message other than the one you intended, and your viewer goes and does something based on that other message, then it has not met its requirement. With a good piece of design, the designer’s exact message is understood by the viewer.

What about the creator’s abilities?
More often than not, an artist has natural ability. Of course, from a young age, the artist grows up drawing, painting, sculpting and developing their abilities.
But the true value of an artist is in the talent (or natural ability) they are born with. There is some overlap here: good artists certainly have skill, but artistic skill without talent is, arguably, worthless.
​
Design, though, is really a skill that is taught and learned. You do not have to be a great artist to be a great designer; you just have to be able to achieve the objectives of design.
Some of the most respected designers in the world are best known for their minimalist styles. They don’t use much color or texture, but they pay great attention to size, positioning, and spacing, all of which can be learned without innate talent.

This really falls under the second point about interpretation and understanding. But if you take only one thing away from this article, take this point.
Many designers consider themselves artists because they create something visually attractive, something they would be proud for people to hang on a wall and admire.
But a visual composition intended to accomplish a specific task or communicate a particular message, no matter how beautiful, is not art. It is a form of communication, simply a window to the message it contains.
Few artists call themselves designers because they seem to better understand the difference. Artists do not create their work to sell a product or promote a service. They create it solely as a means of self-expression, so that it can be viewed and appreciated by others. The message, if we can even call it that, is not a fact but a feeling.

Source : John O'Nolan, Founder at Ghost.org