According to one study, around 30,000 new products are released each year. If you’re releasing a new product, you will need to put a lot of time and effort into the design of your label. After all, if you ignore this, your product will not stand out, so it might not be successful. This post will provide you with some tips that’ll help you do a good job when it comes to label design.
If you follow this advice, you’ll end up with a product label that puts all other designs to shame.
Let’s begin!
1. Study the Competition
If you want to create an effective label design, you should first take a moment to study the competition.
If you study the competition, you’ll get a sense of what’s already out there. You can also study these designs to figure out what does and doesn’t work.
When going through this process, you should try to create something known as a ‘swipe file.’
This document contains pictures and notes based on all the designs you’ve seen within your category.
By creating a swipe file, all your designs will be in one place, making it easy for you to compare products.
Note that when creating a swipe file, you might want to use a ‘note-taking tool’ like Evernote or Onenote. That’s because these tools make it easy for you to ‘tag’ images.
Tagging images is helpful if you want to note a specific feature on an existing label. For instance, you might create a tag based on a certain kind of color or even just a specific type of font.
If you do this, you can then perform a search within your note-taking app based on this tag and see all the designs that have a feature you like. This is really helpful if you’re collecting a massive assortment of label designs.
2. Create Some Sketches
Once you’ve studied the competition, you might then want to create some prototype sketches.
Now, if you’re not much of an artist, you might be worried about your ability to do this.
However, you don’t really need to create something super professional here. You mainly want to develop a rough sense of what your label will look like.
When going through this process, you should try to create a little section in your document that describes the colors you will use. It should also describe the kind of font you’re going to have on your label.
On top of that, you might want to mention any special features your label might have. For instance, if it has any ‘reflective areas,’ you should mention this.
You may also want to include images of other products that can serve as inspiration for your label design.
3. Work With a Freelance Graphic Designer
Once you’ve developed the document we covered in the earlier section, you need to reach out to a professional graphic designer.
They will be able to turn your concepts into a polished label design, which you can then use in the ‘real world.’ To find a graphic designer, you should consider using a freelancing platform like Upwork. When looking for designers, you should try to work with someone with experience designing labels.
If you find an expert like this, the whole process of working with them will be a lot easier. After all, they’ll better understand what you’re after and know more about what does and doesn’t work in designing a label.
Additionally, before you work with a graphic designer, you should ask them how they approach ‘redesigns.’
That’s because some graphic designers will be happy to make minor changes for you free of charge. Others, though, might charge you a lot of money if you want to adjust their final designs.
Therefore, if you clarify all of this ahead of time, you can avoid any unpleasant surprises regarding how much you’ll have to pay.
You might even want to create a contract, so the designer does not change their approach at the last minute.
4. Is It Better to Hire an Agency?
In some cases, you might not have much luck when it comes to working with a professional graphic design expert.
If that happens, you may want to consider reaching out to some packaging design firms. These firms are essentially agencies that help people design labels for their goods.
Such firms tend to have much in-house staff, all of whom have varying skill sets. Thus, if you work with them, you’ll benefit from a wide range of expertise, resulting in a better final product.
Note that when you meet with one of these agencies, you should talk about your marketing strategy and how you plan to influence consumers. You should also talk about your approach to brand advertising.
This is all very important data for the agency as they will need to use this information to inform their approach.
For example, if your marketing campaigns target the luxury sector, the agency will know they need to give your label a ‘high-end’ design.
Do You Know How to Create an Effective Label Design?
The tips in this post should help you do a good job regarding label design.
Ideally, you should try to give yourself as much time as you can to work on your label. That’s because crafting an engaging design can take a long time, and you don’t want to rush this process.
After all, if you rush things, you might end up with a lackluster design, which could lead to poor sales, even if your actual product is amazing.
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