Have you ever had trouble with sticker shrinkage – especially for large wall mural installations? As a print provider, we’ve had many customers asking about the shrinkage of stickers and whether there was a way we could provide stickers without shrinkage. With these questions, however, no one really delves into the details.

As it turns out, due to Singapore’s hot and humid weather, the heat causes both the sticker’s paper liner backing and the vinyl sticker itself to expand. Thus, when applying the sticker, the elasticity of the already expanded vinyl will shrink from the printed size back to its original size. The actual vinyl sticker itself doesn’t shrink in size.

But how do we know this?

We did a simple proof of concept to get the “shrink” vinyl sticker and measure it side by side with one that “has no shrinkage” from the same lot of vinyl sticker. With our precise measurements, you will find that the “shrink” vinyl sticker is no shorter than the “no shrink” ones. Instead, it is truly the paper liner backing that has expanded and leaves a gap on the blank liner. This proves that the paper baking has expanded and caused the vinyl to follow suit in explanation. After the tug and pull with the paper liner, it will cause a size difference.

Even if the vinyl sticker is in its “raw” state, being in a roll form, heat from the weather and humidity does play a part such that the outer layer of the sticker will grow longer. It is common in every roll of vinyl sticker that if it is left in the open without any protection to the sticker roll, the uneven edges of the roll will tell a story, as the outer layer of the vinyl expand. On the bright side, the inner core or layers of the vinyl will not be as affected as compared to the outer layers.

“Ah-Ha!”, I know what you might be thinking of the solutions that may be able to alleviate the situation… “What if one changes the sticker’s paper liner to maybe a plastic liner? Wouldn’t that solve the problem of the non-shrinkage?”

Now that also causes its own problems as well, with both materials of the sticker being plastic, it causes the sticker to be a very smooth texture, causing potential problems such as skidding off the machine and causing the print to be misaligned.

No doubt that there are many more possibilities that can be applied, but at the moment it has not been researched and found a better solution than the current sticker materials at hand. It took me a while to believe this. At first, I thought that it was a joke given by the vinyl suppliers but it turns out after the repeat explanations from them, I feel that I want to convey the message to everyone in this industry. Just bear in mind at the end of the day, vinyl’s characteristics are meant to be elastic and if the vinyl can’t be elastic, it is not called vinyl.