Your Bumper Sticker Maker

Your Bumper Sticker Maker

Reviewed by: Lianne Reitter and Howard Carson, update Jan 2007
Published by: Enteractive, Inc.
Requires: Pentium 90 or better, Win 95/98/2000/ME/XP, 16MB RAM, 16MB hard drive space, color monitor, color printer. Power Macintosh PPC processor, Mac OS8 or higher, 16MB RAM, 16MB hard drive space, color monitor, color printer
MSRP: $29.95

We're talking about messages here - public messages - on bumper stickers. We're talking about gifts of pithy sayings, raunchy statements, outright nastiness and downright funniness. A custom made bumper sticker will do it every time. There aren't many bumper sticker makers out there, which is kind of surprising considering the number of bumper stickers floating around. All you need is basic text layout, some basic templates, some of the right kind of paper (something which will work outdoors of course), and a decent inkjet printer. That's essentially what Enteractive has assembled (except for the printer). Your Bumper Sticker Maker is fun and it works easily and well.

First and foremost, Your Bumper Sticker Maker is dead easy to use. Installation is brief and uneventful. Launch the software. Read the simple user interface - it's presented in the order required to make a bumper sticker. Choose from the themed layouts, add your text (choose a font, color, etc.). Print. That's it. The printed results are suitable as gifts, adornment for your own bumper, announcements, novelties and memorabilia. Our experience with this type of software suggests that you should really do test prints on plain paper before using any of the more expensive bumper sticker paper to print the final version.

For the record, we needed only three minutes to load the software, decide on bumper sticker, type the text and print. Three minutes. That's fast. The results were excellent - the bumper stickers look like they were store-bought. After special treatment as directed, the bumper stickers should stand up to most inclement weather. We recently handed several bumper stickers to a local plumber. We had printed his business name a phone number on the stickers using one of the basic designs in Your Bumper Sticker Maker, and asked him to do a little test. After a month of lousy weather (rain, snow, sleet, freezing cold), the stickers are still holding up nicely.

As with Enteractive's companion product Your Trading Card Maker, the keys to this type of software are ease of use and the availability of appropriate specialty paper. Enteractive has made the software absurdly simple to use. As of January 2006, bumper sticker paper sheets are available in quantity from their web site (6 sheet pack for $19.95 - total of 12 bumper stickers) and a few national software retailers. Online orders are quick and simple these days. During January 2007 we re-checked the pricing on bumper sticker paper from Avery and a couple of other sources to find out if prices had changed. In fact, it looks like there's even more variety (different colors) and more competitive pricing. That's great news.

Cons: No problems here. A few more paper supplies in the package would be nice (but how much can you expect for $29.95?).

Pros: Professional bumper sticker layouts - clean designs. 10,000 graphics from Nova Development's Art Mania collection. Uses water resistant bumper sticker paper. Simple, accurate print control. Superb results on almost any decent inkjet printer (read: almost anything on the market these days). A good example of what can be done with Macromedia Director, Flash and Shockwave UI application design. Speedy, stable operation. Your Bumper Sticker Maker, awkward product name and all, remains one of the most popular home graphics programs we've ever reviewed. It's popularity is absolutely tied to the high quality, well designed content and the wonderfully straightforward user interface. If you want to get things done quickly and cleanly, this is the software to get. Output looks good even on $69 bargain basement printers. Highly recommended.