FORMAT · LABEL

Label
design.

A label has to do the whole job of a pack on a container someone else made. It wraps, it curves, it distorts, and the part you designed most carefully is the part facing the back of the shelf. We design labels for jars, bottles, cans, tins and tubs — front-and-back sets, wrap-arounds and shrink sleeves.

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WHAT WE DESIGN HERE

Every format in the aisle.

Designing for a container you did not design

The jar and the bottle are supplied — chosen for cost, fill line and what the filler already runs. That means the label inherits every constraint of a shape it had no say in: the shoulder curve, the panel width, the height of the fill. We start by measuring the actual container rather than designing to a flat rectangle and discovering the mismatch on press.

Curvature, and the third you cannot see

On a round container roughly a third of the label is readable head-on, and the rest recedes fast. Type set across a curve compresses toward the edges, and a centred logo on a narrow jar can be almost entirely lost. The practical rule is to keep the identifying element in the front third and let the ingredient and declaration copy wrap into the space that curves away.

Front-and-back sets versus wrap-arounds

A two-part set gives a clean front and a dense back, which suits a product with a lot to declare. A wrap-around gives continuity and a better shelf block, but the seam has to land somewhere deliberate. Choosing between them is a shelf decision more than an aesthetic one, and it changes how much can be said.

Tins, cans and tubs

A tub lid is read from directly above in a chiller and the side is barely seen; a can is the reverse. Each needs its hierarchy built for the angle it is actually met at. Metal substrates add a further problem — white ink is a printed layer rather than the stock, so anything meant to look clean needs it specified rather than assumed.

Declarations, batch coding and the back panel

Labels carry the densest compliance load of any format: ingredients, nutrition, net quantity, licence numbers, warnings, and a clear area the filler will overprint with batch and expiry. That overprint zone is real estate you do not own, and designs that ignore it get a date code stamped across the ingredient list. We reserve it from the start.

THE WORK · LABEL

On the shelf.

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HOW WE PRICE

Scope first, then a number.

You only pay for what is required, nothing more. Send the brief — SKU count, formats, whether a range has to stretch later — and we will come back with a scope-based proposal within one working day.

FAQ

Asked and answered.

How much does label design cost?

It depends on scope — one label is a different job from a portfolio across container sizes and variants. You only pay for what is required, nothing more. Share your brief and we will prepare a scope-based proposal within one working day.

Do you design the bottle or jar as well?

No — containers are supplied, and we design the label that goes on them. If you are choosing a container we will happily advise on which shape gives the label a fighting chance, but the vessel tooling itself is your supplier’s.

Can you work with shrink sleeves?

Yes. Sleeves distort as they shrink, and the distortion is not uniform — it is worst at the shoulder and the base. Artwork has to be pre-distorted to the container profile, so we work from the supplier’s distortion grid rather than guessing.

How do you handle batch and expiry overprinting?

We reserve a clear zone for it in the layout and confirm the position with your filler. It is the single most common cause of a label being reprinted, because the code goes wherever the machine puts it regardless of what is underneath.

Label design.