How to make sticker text in Illustrator
Add a thick white stroke below the fill in the Appearance panel with round joins, then a slightly wider dark stroke below that so its rim shows past the white, and a soft drop shadow. JuicyType's Sticker effect draws the die-cut border round the whole word as up to three bands.
The manual way, in Illustrator
- Select the text. In Window › Appearance add a new stroke and drag it below the Characters row.
- Make it white, thick, with Round Join in the Stroke panel so the border wraps smoothly.
- Add a second stroke below it in a dark colour and make it wider than the white one, say 16 pt under a 12 pt white: only the part that reaches past the white stroke shows, as a 2 pt rim. Give it Round Join too.
- Optionally apply Effect › Stylize › Drop Shadow to the whole object.
Letters that touch merge their borders unevenly; JuicyType draws one contour around the whole word.
Menu paths checked against Adobe's current Illustrator documentation; hands-on verification and screenshots are still to come.
Sticker with JuicyType
Select the text, open the JuicyType panel, choose Sticker, and drag. It is a live effect, so the text stays editable and every control can be changed later.
- Bandsup to 3 concentric die-cut bands
- Band width0–200 pt each
- Band colourTC1 / TC2 / Black / White / spot; defaults TC2, Black, White
Common questions
Can the border be one shape around the whole word?
Manually you would outline the text and use Offset Path plus Pathfinder Unite. That only joins letters whose offsets overlap, so widely spaced letters need a larger offset or connecting shapes, and a coloured border is not a printer's cut path by itself. JuicyType draws one contour automatically.