STicket contest submission guidelines

STicket Submission Deadline for 2024 is April 8, 2024

General Submission Guidelines

All STicket designs must be original. Generative art/AI art must be labeled as such. No clip art, stock art, or copyrighted material may be used. We’re serious about this.

The designs can be created digitally or with pen and paper.

Do not post or display your design anywhere until after the contest ends. The artist for the winning ticket design will be asked to refrain from posting it anywhere until after the event.

Please indicate how you would like to be credited.

Burning Flipside will do its best to include all submitted designs, in some form of hype, the Survival Guide, or the website, so your art should get seen. When you submit you are giving permission for us to use your design – on the ticket or sticker, on the Burning Flipside website, or in the Survival Guide. If for some reason you do not want your art to be used except as ticket/sticker art, please let us know when you submit it.

Questions? Email the STicket Lead here: sticket@burningflipside.org

Ticket Design Details

Please include the following information within your Ticket design:

Burning Flipside
Cosmic Critter Carnival
May 23–27, 2024
www.burningflipside.com

Technical specifications

  • The actual ticket size is 2 1/8″ × 4 7/8″.
  • The bottom 3/4″ is a stub that will be torn off at gate.
  • The artwork should extend by 1/8″ outside the ticket edges to allow for “bleed.”
  • Critical elements should be inset by 1/8″ inside the ticket edges to create a “clear zone” in case the trim is misaligned.
  • Artwork should be CMYK.
  • Artwork should be supplied at 100% size as either vector art (illustrator or freehand) or at 300 dpi if raster art.
  • If Photoshop – .tif, .eps, .psd and .jpeg files are preferred.
  • Save jpeg files with “maximum quality”.
  • You can download this template to visualize all this.
  • Leave a 1/2″ x 13/16″ space for the Flipside logo to be added to your ticket.

Tips for successful reproduction of your design:

  • You must pay attention to specs, or you could be disqualified.
  • Do not place text too close to the edge of your design. It should be 1/8″ in on either side once the artwork is trimmed.
  • Pick fonts that will be easy to read and try to not use a font that is really thin on a dark background. It will “plug-up” and be hard to read.
  • Do not get too complex, it is often easier to create artwork at a larger size and reduce it down. Keep in mind what it will look like at the smaller size.
  • If you create your art in layers, be sure and save that layered file just in case the printer needs anything altered – this will make it easier on them and you.

Sticker Design Details

Please include at least the following information within your Sticker design: “Flipside 2024”

Technical specifications

  • Submit in black and white (or another color and white). But not multiple colors for the sticker.
  • Sticker Art should cover a 2 1/2 ” circle at 300 dpi.
  • All halftones are screened at 55 lpi and may not look great.
  • Critical elements should be inset by 1/8″ inside the edge to create a “clear zone” in case the trim is misaligned.
  • If your design runs to the edge, extend it past the edge by 1/8″ outside the ticket edges to allow for “bleed.”

Tips for successful reproduction of your design:

  • Make your design simple! Intricate and super-fine lines (less than 1-pt) tend to dry up in the screen and will not show up on the sticker. For your reference, 1pt lines are roughly the same size as what a medium ball point pen will draw. Serifed fonts can be a nightmare – especially at small point sizes. Set all type to at LEAST 10 points.
  • In the past we’ve only printed black and white stickers. Grayscale or gradients are a real pain and don’t print very well, so try to stick to solid colors. If you want to submit a two or three color image, that’s fine and it will be reviewed, but (depending on cost) it may end up being converted into black and white.

How to Submit Your Entry

Click here to open the submission form.  This uses Catalyst Collective’s Google Drive account and therefore requires you to login to Google. The form makes life easy for us, but if you prefer not to do that, you can e-mail files to the lead along with:

  • your full legal name
  • the way you want to be credited for your work
  • what “cosmic critter carnival” mean to you,
  • and whether you’re submitting for the ticket/sticker/both