9 Pro Tips to Create Perfect Product Labels

Last Updated on December 6, 2022 by DesignerPeople

Creating a product label is not just always focusing on something pretty. It’s about designing something that makes your product stands out on the shelf, discharge your brand values, and catch customers’ attention. It should also guide the customer down the line of purchasing your product.

It might sound complicated because actually, it is!

Implementing a perfect label design is a challenging part in itself. When it comes to designing a compelling product label design, there are multiple things to consider that not just any designer can do.

Product labels are the user’s window into the actual contents of a hazy package, converting the customer to the type of product inside, sharing company branding, and more. An excellent label design can switch all the differences to the success of a product, as most customers decide which products to purchase in-store.

Now let’s start with the top 9 ingredients that help in creating a perfect label design for your product:

1. Target Audience:

From the very moment a customer sees a product on the shelf till the time they use the product, they routinely become more familiar with the brand. Therefore, understanding what attracts your target audience to the product helps regulate the best product labelling strategies.

In short, we can consider the labelling of your product as a form of advertising that can tell a customer a lot about your brand. People can understand your product and brand more through the features exhibited on the packaging, such as colours, fonts, imageries, etc. Thus, knowing your target audience will certainly help you develop the packaging that pleases them.

Also Read: How Branding Company Help Business Growth

2. Communicate Brand Story:

There will always be an influential story behind the success of every brand. Some organisations might have started decades ago from their ancestors, and they have grown the business, while some are startups operated by a founder’s passion.

No matter what’s your case, but all products are inspired by effective stories. Sharing such unique messages makes your product more robust and creates a distinct customer journey that establishes stronger relationships. Implementing such messages on your product label design will not only helps in brand communication but also elevate your design elements as well. While creating your story, make sure it is short, crisp and sweet that only delivers the focal point.

3. Label Material:

Choosing your packaging material is an essential step in determining the aesthetics of your product. Coming up with unique labelling material that gives your product a speciality or premium feeling when the customer holds it, further adding the best impression and experience regarding the brand or product.

In general, most brands usually prefer glass packaging over plastic as it’s healthier, has higher elegance, and speaks to the product’s quality. Indeed, the harder surface on the material gives a long-lasting bond with the label.

At present, there are many alternative materials available in the market that meets the user’s requirement, like jars, containers, sustainable bottles, etc. So, make sure your labelling material will speak your brand and product characteristics. (source)

4. Design Architecture:

Design architecture is one of the foremost elements as it makes customers the first impression on labelling from a distance. Label design architecture usually encircles the brand’s identity colour. Indeed, it also incorporates something delicate about the brand that is unique to it. Apart from catchy imageries, a brilliant tagline that explains your brand message and a great graphic design will elevate your overall design to the next level.

Implementing one or two placements on the centre of the label design that highlights the USPs of the product makes it more appealing for your product as well as the label design. You can also evaluate the competitor’s design architecture so that you can execute a strategy that makes your brand special from others and gain a competitive advantage.

5. Colour is King:

The colours utilised when creating a product label are crucial when your product is displayed on the shelves. They play a vital role in purchasing decisions and developing an emotional attachment to the product.

While determining the colours, ensure that you go with your brand’s colours and maintain brand consistency. You can try fun colours and fonts but don’t cross the limit. Maintaining consistency will make your brand easy to recognise and keep customers trustworthy to your brand. If you have many products under the same segment, create variant designs that look uniform with the same labelling design in different colour schemes.

6. Right Font Style:

A typical label design has a wealth of information on it. Implementing this information in the appropriate way is the essence of label design, and utilising the proper font to do so is paramount.

Using multiple fonts for different sections will be benefited for your product. You can use one font for the product name, another for the slogan and the third category for product information or other back content of the label design.

Having a custom typeface is a prominent way for your product to stand out on shelves and be remembered.

7. Product USP:

The final goal of a product label is to grab the customer’s attention at their first glimpse itself. The best method to achieve this is by highlighting the USP of the product.

Each product has its own USP’s, making them unique from others; highlight and display in your products to register in the customer’s mindset. Understanding the USP of the product will not only guide you in deciding the information that needs to be displayed, but it will also help you make crucial design decisions during your process.

8. Practical Design:

Every design is created for a particular product only. So, we need to create a practical design to show the friendly nature of the product. While creating the design, keep in mind your target audience, which will help execute the design related to their lives.

Implementation of colour, theme, and imageries needs to be done to complement the product’s practicality. A professional label design is not only a practical business necessity; it can be an ideal space for innovative ingenuity.

9. Follow FSSAI Guidelines:

To get your FMCG product labelling approved by FSSAI guidelines, you need to create the design following the terms and conditions of the guidelines. Our DesignerPeople team has proven expertise in this segment and clearly understands these guidelines by studying the recommendations from the Indian Government Body.

However, the typical headings include Date of Manufacture, Best before, Date of Packaging, Batch Number, Vegetarian or Non-Vegetarian Food Symbol, Principal Display panel, etc. Only a professional design agency with a clear understanding of these elements can execute the perfect design for the product. We have to adjust the design according to the FSSAI guidelines, and it’s not an easy task.

10. Product Image or Illustration:

Choosing of product image or illustration plays a significant role in the overall label design. For example, a person who does not have a clear idea about hair oil and when he gets into the store, he visualises many products similar to yours, so how would they pick your product from competitors? And, it’s possible only through creative solid imageries or illustrations.

Packaging with strong imageries communicates with consumers successfully. Therefore, the illustrations or product images used in label design should match up with the story and the product’s message.

11. Customer Review:

When creating a design from the customer’s point of view, you should keep them updated and engross them in the design process. Designers have their own creative approaches when it comes to how much they engage the client with the design process.

While some adopt to include customer interaction as much as possible at each design stage, others only provide minimal updates for approval. No matter your case, it is essential to get the customer review or feedback before carrying out any significant design changes as they have a particular reason for that change in the design.

Designing Tips for Label Design

Now let’s discuss the effective designing tips that need to be considered while creating your product label design:

1. Professional Software:

In the current era, we have much-advanced software that helps create the product label design in its best format with creativity. As a professional product label design agency, we use the latest updated software’s like Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and other advanced tools.

Creating designs with professional software’s always help you get the best designs that gain a competitive advantage. With a bunch of experts and professional software, we can execute any kind of design that meets your requirements. With an experience of more than 18 years in this industry, we have witnessed the change in the label design segment, and we adapt the latest trends with time.

2. Dieline:

Every label has a die-line, but not all products give a custom die. It is basically the placeholder for helping in the proper layout that will finally lead to the finishing process. It is mostly used in the final design stage for sizing and orientation purposes.

The major importance of the die line comes in the shelf appearance, where there are many similar brands displayed in the same place; it’s the shape of your label that makes your product stand out from others. It is the primary reason why many bigger brands are more concerned with such elements to create a label shape that fits their design.

3. CMYK or RGB:

RGB and CMYK are the two significant modes for mixing colour in graphic design. However, if you want to enhance your design wholly, you need to understand these two terms broadly. In technical terms, the RGB colour model is used in digital works, whereas CMYK is used for print products.

RGB indicates “Red Green Blue”. The colour mode is majorly used if your design is displayed on the optical screen. These are used in electronic displays such as cameras, TVs, etc.

CMYK represents “Cyan Magenta Yellow Key” or “Black”. It is the colour scheme used for designs, including printed materials. With the combination of colours like yellow, magenta, black and other primary colours, it gives rise to different other colours. It is the combination we are typically used in product label designing.

4. Outline Text:

Once you are finalised with the material, artwork, size and, you are set to execute the design; but the text still needs to be outlined. It is one of the significant elements that most early bird designers don’t notice while executing the product label design.

Not all printing companies and designers bear the same font, especially if you create a customised font for your label design. And, if you use a font that is not available with your printer, the text will revert to the program’s standard font. So, the best solution is to convert the text to outlines. Once you convert them to outlines, they are no longer text and becomes an un-editable vector graphic.

5. Render Image:

Sometimes, while showing the designs in the normal format, clients won’t be getting on how their product actually looks. Thus, executing the product rendering with high-quality images helps them get a clear idea of the design and overall product.

The 3D modelling also allows both the clients and designers to determine the user experience, identify any obstacles, find design issues and refine the product design accordingly.

Such product exhibitions using 3D rendering allow brands to get an idea of how to promote the products even before manufacturing the actual output.

Some Inspirational Label Design Ideas

Any packaging is incomplete without a label. Whether it’s your brand name, product information, gratitude line, customers always await to see packaging labels on your products. It’s a reality that many people are really concerned about what they are buying, even if it’s a pen, which makes the label a vital element of your branding.

Though there are infinite options to create a label design, remember to make them clear and attractive. Let’s discuss some of the inspirational label design ideas to give you an understanding of the latest trends of product label designs:

Conclusion

Creating a strongbox label for your products is a complicated job and not everyone’s cup of tea! Someone who has an intelligible knowledge and understanding of the above tips can create an eye-catchy label design for a product.

Designing an eye-catchy product label from scratch involves different factors in your product packaging and brand identity. However, with the above mentioned secret tips and ingredients, DesignerPeople can create a distinct design that gives a prominent look to the product.

If you have any further concerns about creating an effective product label design, you can connect with us. We always strive for new inventions and firmly believe that creativity is the key to utmost success. We can definitely align a meeting to discuss your labelling requirement over a cup of tea.

Author: Megha Malik

As a passionate entrepreneur and creative brand consultant with experience of 14 years in digital, branding and packaging industry, it is my honest effort to put my experiences and knowledge of industry towards readers. A chartered accountant by degree but a marketing personality in blood has motivated her to take in designing industry as a career. With her fun-loving personality and sharp branding skills, she is a great motivational speaker on her YouTube channel, an active member in various business channels offline as well as online. Do connect me personally via my LinkedIn and I love to share my expertise with you.