[ST] [Publications-staff] Ribbons

[Jack Dietz]

On stickers,

I see two interlocking problems with stickers, and they have to do  
with the size of our badge.  The badge is credit card sized (3 3/8" x  
2 1/8") and has to have at least the wearer's name the convention  
title, and any specific type-of-membership text visible (Saturday- 
only, etc).  That doesn't leave nearly as much room as a 2"x6" ribbon  
hanging below for information about what privileges the wearer gets.   
(And we cover up the artwork on the badge)  I believe that we want it  
visible at a glance whether someone's entitled to go into the Staff  
Den or to tell con members that they need to stop crowding the elevator.

Moreover, many people have multiple roles at the con: staff AND  
program participant AND masquerade participant, each of which lets  
them enter different parts of the convention.  So, the stickers need  
to be small enough, say 1"x1.5", to let multiple stickers be affixed  
and to still permit the badge name to be seen.  It'll be hard to make  
the stickers be as interpretable at a glance as our ribbons are.  I'd  
also worry that it'd be easy to stick stickers such that the badge  
can't be optimally filled, if someone didn't expect to get a  
battlefield promotion.

We could get around the badge being too small by having some kind of  
a badge extension (like a ribbon) on which people affixed their  
privilege stickers.  However, that cuts into the savings of using  
stickers, and it wouldn't look as intentional or professional as  
either badge stickers or ribbons.

In addition to the space problem, there are other organizations  
handing out stickers at cons, to promote parties or Worldcon bids or  
silliness.  We'd need to make our STAFF sticker stand out really well  
against one of those.  And, it's harder to go down to Kinkos and get  
ribbons that match ours than it is to get stickers that would match  
ours, though we haven't seen a counterfeiting problem in the past.

I think that it'll be difficult for us to replace ribbons with  
stickers.  Cutting down on the number of different ribbons we have  
sounds like a reasonable way to cut costs and take more advantage of  
the high-volume discounts.

Jack

On Oct 31, 2006, at 10:35 AM, Val Grimm wrote:

> I agree with Sharon. But I also think it might be good to investigate
> the price of stickers.....e.g. http://www.websticker.com/labels.htm
>
> If the thing just had the Arisia badge and said staff....maybe a foil
> thing even to ensure no duplications.
>
> On 10/31/06, Sharon Sbarsky <sbarsky at panix.com> wrote:
>> They've restructured their pricing scheme.
>>
>> 2" x 6" vertical with tape top (Arisia's standard order) is:
>>
>> QTY     1-99    100-499 500-999 1000-4999       5000+
>>         $0.51   $0.38   $0.29   $0.24   $0.19
>>
>> plus ~6% shipping, minus 10% winter discount (assuming the order  
>> doesn't
>> go in today. :-) No tax.
>>
>> There is a charge to change the "title" i.e. CLUE --> COMMITTEE of  
>> $.75
>> per line (though they may have changed this recently also.) And  
>> there may
>> be additional charges depending on how many colors of ink are used.
>>
>> IMHO, it is better to have generic "STAFF" ribbons than specific
>> department staff ribbons. It's cheaper (fewer title changes and fewer
>> "wasted" ribbons) and more unifying for the convention.
>>
>> But since Arisia doesn't put year, etc on the ribbon, previous  
>> year's can
>> be reused if they are saved and inventoried between each year.
>>