Blog posted on: 18 January 2010, by tim

If you need professional looking CDs printed in very small quantities there's not many options. Most pro CD duplication houses have a minimum run of several hundred, so that's out of the question, and you can buy paper labels for your home printer, but the results are never going to look truly professional.

In this tutorial I'll show you how to create a pro looking CD label using diginate.com contour cut stickers. This technique is great if...

You're a film-maker and need a handful of high-end showreel DVDs.

You're a photographer or designer and need to include a CD or DVD with your portfolio.

You need to prototype a CD design prior to a longer run.

You're in a band and need high end CDs to distribute within the industry.

The beauty of using diginate stickers is that you can use some of our more exciting finishes. In this example I'm going to go all out and create a CD label using our contour cut metallic silver vinyl stickers with a spot gloss varnish, but you could use any of our contour cut products. Let's get going:

First off I'm going to design my artwork in Illustrator. For help on this see our tutorial.

Here's a template for the CD design.

Here's my finished artwork. The green text represents the gloss layer, and the white text will be silver. The dimensions of the finished sticker are 11.7cm x 11.7cm.

This is my finished sticker. Now all I need to do is apply it to the CD. It's best to use an unbranded CD as any print on the surface will create a small raised impression after the sticker has been applied.

First off check the surface of the disc is free of dust and grease. Spray some water mixed with washing up liquid or window cleaner onto the disc:

Now you can position the sticker onto the disc. Thanks to the water and detergent you can reposition the sticker on the disc, so it's perfectly central.

Once you're happy with the position of the sticker rub it firmly into place, which will remove the water from under the adhesive and bond the sticker firmly onto the disc. I'm using a felt squeegee to do this, but you could use a credit card with some soft fabric wrapped around it, or anything similar.

Once the sticker has adhered and there's no bubbles in the sticker dry the whole disc with a soft cloth. Job done. Here's my finished CD:

The finish is virtually identical to a mass manufactured major label CD: you'd never know it's a one off! The spot gloss adds a nice texture to the disc, and is something which would never be possible as a short-run item in the past.

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