Questions You Should Know about Custom Labels

How many labels would you like printed? Our flexible mix of digital and flexographic print technologies means that we can print from one label to one million labels.

If you want to learn more, please visit our website XRPINK.

Also consider how you want the labels supplied; all at once or over a period of time. We have three flexible service offerings to suit your individual needs; Make to Order, Make to Hold and Make to Stock.

How many varieties of the label do you need to print? Some labels will have multiple SKU’s in the range e.g. 5 flavours of the same cordial label. Are there any colour change-outs between each different label?

What size label do you need? Are there any size restrictions? Do you have the flexibility to modify the label size? We may have existing tooling available and a small label size change could make a big difference in optimising print efficiencies (and price).

Does your artwork specify the number and type of colours used, or do you have a colour system in mind? We can print in CMYK, PMS spot colours, or a combination. If you are unsure, read our blog to learn more about understanding colours for custom label printing.

What type of finish or protection will you need on your label? Standard options are a gloss coating, matt coating, gloss or matt lamination.

Will your label be overprinted? This can affect the suitability of the finish. Overprinting is used for variable information such as barcodes, ingredients, dates and batch codes. Common methods are Direct Thermal, Thermal Transfer, Inkjet and Laser.  

How many labels do you need on each roll? This can be particularly important to consider if you will be automatically applying the labels, as you may have a maximum diameter that will fit on the equipment.

What size core do you require? Our most common sizes include 25, 38, 41 and 76mm. Your applicator may dictate this.

Winding direction refers to the way the label comes off the roll when you unwind it. We use the industry standard system of 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 or 8 (see our handy winding direction chart to learn more). This is most important to customers using automatic applicators, which usually are set up for a specific winding direction.

Have you designed your label already? When you are ready to supply artwork please ensure that the files are set up correctly. Supplying correct art files allows your artwork to flow seamlessly through our prepress processes, while achieving the highest possible print result. Our Artwork Checklist covers all you need to know.

Which color mode should my graphic designer use when designing my product labels? That’s easy – the answer is CMYK!

Our digital presses print in “Four Color Process” mode – often called CMYK because it represents the four primary colors (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black – the “K” stands for “key,” which means black in printers-speak). These four colors are then mixed in various combinations to give you an unlimited variety of color choices. Our Four Color Process printing is fundamentally similar to how your desktop printer works too – although our industrial presses are probably a little more expensive (like, how does $1Million-plus per press sound?).

In contrast, RGB (Red, Green, and Blue) is a three-color combination used by computer monitors and TV screens. Since our digital presses use CMYK mode, printing a product label that’s designed in RGB mode can result in significant color distortion. It’s therefore critical that your designer create your artwork files in CMYK mode to maintain accurate colors for your product label.

Free tip – if your designer doesn’t know the difference between CMYK vs. RGB color mode, or wants to argue about the correct one to use, we politely suggest you might wish to reconsider that relationship. If your carpenter doesn’t know the difference between a hammer and a nail, the same advice applies. No charge – you’re very welcome.

Bonus free tip (we’re feeling generous today) – NEVER look at a computer monitor and assume the color will look the same when printed. Tweaking a design on-screen to achieve a pleasing color result is a recipe for disaster when you print the same design. ALWAYS test-print the design on your own desktop printer as a starting point, which if nothing else will demonstrate the differences between an RGB monitor and a CMYK printer. Then throw that printout way – because you can also assume that almost every desktop printer will produce a slightly different result (even identical models). We’re not trying to frighten you here (wizards are not monsters), but trying to help you understand that what your designer shows you on their computer is NOT a good representation of the printed result. Again, hammers and nails.

It’s not uncommon for customers to want White ink to be printed in parts of their labels – most particularly if they’re using Chrome or Clear material. If you do wish to make use of White ink in this way, there are a couple of ways to achieve it during the design process, depending on which software the designer is using:

As explained elsewhere, our preferred file format is Adobe Illustrator – which is a vector-based program that produces the best printed results. If your designer is using Illustrator, the process of adding White ink is relatively simple. The designer just needs to lay out the White ink on a separate layer with a custom spot color – and name the layer “white ink”. It also helps if they make the “white” swatch 100% Cyan and 100% Yellow (100/0/100/0) so that the white ink areas appear bright green in the artwork and very obvious to our pre-press technicians. We will then use that layer to tell the press where to print white ink.

FYI, it’s also possible to add a white layer in Photoshop – but slightly more complicated. That said, a competent designer should know how to do this.

Alternatively, if your designer is using software that doesn’t support layers and/or is producing “image files” (e.g. jpg, png, or any other raster files with minimal ability for us to manipulate them) they should lay out the chosen “white areas” in a separate file and assign Black as the color (so it’s visible on the screen). We will assume that any areas showing as black in that file should be superimposed in the original design and set to print White.

Also assume that anywhere there is no color defined in the artwork, no ink will be printed and the background will show through – in the case of Clear material this will be the product itself, but on Chrome it will be the shiny silver metallic material.

We occasionally encounter customers who have designed their labels using Adobe InDesign, and they express surprise and/or indignation when we refuse to accept those files in their native format (i.e. files with an *.indd extension). In order to explain why, let’s first take a look at the history and intent behind InDesign.

Adobe developed InDesign as the successor to Aldus PageMaker – which they acquired in . PageMaker was a significant player in what was then called “desktop publishing”, and InDesign was developed to take its place in the Adobe suite of products. Keep in mind that the internet was still many years away from being the pervasive platform we now take for granted, so desktop publishing was all about creating printed items such as brochures, newsletters, magazines and so on – essentially anything using “pages” as the common delivery mechanism.

Accordingly, InDesign was specifically engineered with that kind of goal in mind – it provides amazing control over page layouts and “book-style” multi-page publications. But at its core, its strengths are in what used to be called “typesetting”, i.e. laying out lots of textual content in a user-friendly way to aid readability and continuity – using paragraphs, columns, page numbering etc – and it makes excellent use of templates to standardize layout throughout a publication.

So why not use it for designing product labels? Well, there are a number of reasons – not all of which are exclusive in themselves – but the finished package has some definite downsides:

Indesign files are not actually a single file at all – they’re a structured collection of various elements in a folder-style arrangement, with fonts, images, text etc all having their own special structures. This means that the .indd file is completely unusable by any other software (even Adobe’s other products!).

This means that if we were to receive an InDesign file, we would first have to open it in InDesign, then export the design into a format our printing presses can work with – and that format is (wait for it…) Adobe Illustrator. Yes, it’s true that we can work with many other formats too, but they all need to be prepared for press in Illustrator before we can actually print them.

In the case of InDesign, even though it’s also an Adobe product, the two formats are quite incompatible – and unexpected results can occur when exporting into Illustrator format. Our pre-press staff would probably not even recognize any issues that might occur during the transfer, because they didn’t design the labels and have no way to know what the designer was intending. Hence it makes perfect sense for the original designer to do the exporting process – and thereby ensuring that the output is what they expected and intended.

In summary, there are way too many possible (and unintended) consequences of us having to mess with InDesign files, and we simply see no practical benefit in taking that risk – especially when it’s not difficult for the original designer to take responsibility for delivering something that we can have more control over and is less likely to produce unexpected results when you receive the finished labels.

Absolutely! Unlike most label printers, we have a high-tech laser machine that can cut almost any shape on almost any material (with a couple of minor exceptions).

Most label printers without laser-cutting equipment need to have custom dies made to cut special shapes  – which can cost you several hundreds of dollars and involve extra delays while waiting for a die to be made. With laser cutting, there are no die charges, but we do charge a nominal fee (usually $30) to prepare a special file that drives the laser beams to achieve the desired result.

If you are looking for more details, kindly visit Custom Labels.

Because our online Quoter has no way to predict the level of complexity involved with a special shape, we’ll need to see your artwork before knowing which fee to apply. So you should just choose the “Special” shape when quoting and ordering. Once we see the artwork, we’ll let you know whether the Laser Fee will be $30 – and assuming you approve the charge we’ll just add it to your order and proceed as normal.

SPECIAL NOTE: in order for our laser equipment to correctly cut your custom shape, your artwork files need to include a vector die-line showing precisely where the laser beam is required to cut the shape. Your graphic designer should know how to create a vector die-line, without which we can’t produce the required result.

The vast majority of product labels you see on store shelves are still printed on the traditional mechanical presses that have been around for generations. The process is most often called “flexography” – or flexo for short – and it relies on flexible “printing plates” (one for each color) to apply the ink to the material. The inks themselves are kept in separate “stations” with each color being applied sequentially as the material moves through the press (which can result in “registration” issues if the successive colors don’t align perfectly).

It’s fair to recognize that this technology produces a fine product in many circumstances, but there are challenges associated with the approach. The plates themselves can be quite expensive (more colors means more plates), and any changes to the design or content will require new plates to be made at additional cost. Flexo presses also require significant setup time (often several hours) and substantial material wastage before the first production label can be printed – and these additional overheads often force customers to buy higher quantities to bring the unit cost down to an acceptable level. In some cases, particularly for high volumes, this is not a major concern … but if you end up buying 50,000 labels when you only really need 500 or 1,000 for your first batch of product, then it’s obvious that the financial model is being compromised by the technology.

Conversely, digital label printing presses do not use plates, and they also require much less setup time and waste – in many cases none at all. In simple terms, they operate more like a desktop laser printer (although very much bigger and way more expensive) – the artwork files are sent directly to the press and the various colors are printed simultaneously. No plates, no special ink stations, minimal waste and setup – all this translates into a much more flexible scenario for you the customer. This means there’s no additional costs for extra colors and you can have complete freedom when designing your custom product labels without having to worry about cost impacts. In practical terms, the press operator can print as many (or as few) labels as you need at a time, and if you need to change the design or content then it’s just a matter of changing the artwork and re-sending it to the press.

Benefits of Digital Printing

• Speed of Service. Traditional label companies can take anywhere from a week to many weeks to produce a label job, whereas digital companies can typically turn a job much more quickly. At Wizard Labels, our normal production time is 2 working days from the time we receive your approval to proceed.

• Quality. Constant improvements in the digital process have resulted in photo-like quality with unlimited colors, whereas traditional presses mostly rely on a single-plate-per-color model, adding extra cost for each additional color. Most customers are very pleasantly surprised when they see the beautiful results achievable from a digital press, and the absence of plates makes changes to the design a very simple and inexpensive option.

• Cost and Cash Flow. Depending on the quantity of labels printed, it’s certainly possible that the traditional flexo approach can produce a lower unit cost per label – but shorter runs are almost always cheaper if produced digitally. Also, it’s important to consider the overall cost of the traditional job – you could easily end up buying many more labels than you need immediately (affecting cash flow) or alternatively have to consign masses of unused labels to a landfill if something about your product changes. And we all know that regulatory requirements can change with minimal notice – thereby making your existing label stocks worthless.

• Flexible Quantities. With digital technology, it’s as simple as telling the press how many labels are needed (similar in concept to telling your desktop printer you want 15 copies or 150 copies). If you need more in a month, we just repeat the process and tell the press how many you want this time. Given that the press needs minimal setup each time, you can print anywhere from very low quantities to very large quantities – there’s no need to predict your needs months in advance.

• Versioning. This is a term that refers to the ability of digital label presses to print “similar but not identical” label designs simultaneously – something that’s impractical in traditional presses due to the underlying reliance on “plates”. On a digital press, we can print numerous variations of the same size at the same time – so you can combine multiple product needs in a single run. This approach is called “ganging” and it means you gain the benefit of cheaper prices and can even specify different quantities per version (e.g. Chocolate, Vanilla, and Raspberry), all in the same run – thereby getting a unit price based on the combined quantity of labels. And the colors and designs can be completely different too, so long as the labels are the same size and on the same material so they can be combined in the same run. Versioning also means you can be much more creative in your product offerings – the label cost should not be a consideration.

• Inventory Costs. When you print 50,000 or 100,000 labels for a single product on a traditional press, the quantity is often driven by the desire to get the unit price down (quite understandably). But if you don’t use all those labels immediately they need to be stored somewhere – consuming valuable space and possibly warehousing costs. If you have many unique products, each of which has large stocks of labels waiting to be used, it’s easy to imagine the impact on cash flow and storage – not to mention what happens if something suddenly changes (like an ingredient or legal requirement) and they all become obsolete. Many customers are now realizing that it makes perfect sense to buy their labels on an “as needed” basis rather than having to order (and pay for) an unreasonably large quantity up front.

• Variable Content. With digital presses, it’s actually possible to have slightly different content on EACH individual label printed. A very common example is serial numbering (where each label has a different number), but this is just the beginning. Variable content opens up a whole new world of product possibilities. If this capability is of interest to you, please consult us so we can guide you in the right direction.

• Press Proofs. Digital printing offers the ability to print your proofs on the actual production press without all the setup associated with traditional printing presses. This is not a free service, but if you’re particularly concerned about colors or quality before you go into production, we can make press proofs available at an extra charge – and there are associated delays involved. See here for more information.

• Prototyping. Have you ever considered trying out various label designs on your own customers, or maybe a focus group? Sure, you can hand them pretty designs on normal paper from a desktop printer, but how much more “real” would it be to show them finished products in multiple different ways? With our digital presses, you can gang as many designs as you like together, and only print a small number of each quite cheaply – something completely unachievable on traditional presses.

So, in summary it’s accurate to say that the traditional flexo presses are still quite suitable for very long runs (i.e. large quantities of each individual label), but the modern digital presses are certainly a better bet for most shorter runs – or where there are multiple versions of the same product line. If you’re currently faced with hefty up-front costs for labels and are concerned about obsolescence and waste, you owe it to yourself to explore the benefits of digital printing technology. Frankly, if your current label provider has not moved into digital label printing (and the vast majority have still not, due mainly to the expense involved), you’re probably not getting the best deal possible.

Here’s what the world’s leading Digital Press for printing labels (the HP Indigo WS-series) looks like:

Our commitment to this technology is based on the simple fact that it produces the best quality results available on the market – bar none.

Well, it depends what you mean by eco-friendly. Paper is theoretically a “renewable” resource and it has the potential to break down in a landfill, so that makes it an eco-friendly product label – right? Well… not necessarily. When you factor in the carbon footprint of all the logging trucks and paper mills, it’s not as clear-cut as it may seem. Then, if you stick a paper-based custom label on a plastic container (or apply a plastic over-laminate to protect it, which is very common indeed), the recycling stream gets very complicated as well.

We’re also aware of some interesting materials claiming to be eco-friendly, but some of the claims are questionable upon further investigation. There are indeed label materials made from corn – and even stone! But if you consider the less obvious impacts on the environment (food chain disruption in the case of corn, and the carbon footprint associated with quarrying stone and then converting it into a usable product), as usual there are differing perspectives on the overall ecological benefit of such initiatives.

It’s also important to consider some of the other factors involved in printing product labels. When compared with traditional printing presses (which still produce the vast majority of product labels in circulation) our digital presses consume less energy, produce less waste, use less ink, and require much less industrial chemicals for cleanup. In the bigger picture, these factors can have a significant impact on the whole “eco friendly” discussion – so it’s not appropriate to focus on just the material your labels are printed on.

We’re certainly not experts in eco-management, but we tend to think the primary purpose of a product label is to help “sell” the product – and the label is a very small part of a product in the overall analysis. If you’re comfortable using plastic containers for practical reasons (even as a consumer), then applying a plastic label doesn’t seem like a major abandonment of principle – and it may even help the recycling stream in a small way too.

We occasionally get questions like this from customers who have had bad experiences with other printing companies, and in reality the print industry has always faced challenges with color consistency. The older traditional analog presses use liquid inks that are often hand-mixed for each job, or kept in bottles in anticipation of a need sometime in the future. The process of ink-mixing has certainly improved over time, but it’s still somewhat reliant on human involvement and individual judgement.

The good news is that at Wizard Labels, we use only the very latest digital presses and we calibrate them very frequently (often several times a day) to ensure that any deviation in color can be minimized as much as possible. With the advent of digital printing (and more specifically “process colors”) the technology removed the need for normal pre-mixed inks and switched to automatically mixing the 4 primary colors (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black) in whatever proportions are appropriate to achieve the desired color – and this is done at the time of printing without the need for any operator intervention or preparation. This process helps ensure excellent color accuracy and consistency even months apart.

Can minor color variations still occur between calibrations? Yes, it’s possible – but any such shifts should normally not be noticeable to the human eye, and frequent calibrations also reduce the amount of variation even more. So, within reason, you can expect excellent color consistency regardless of how much time elapses between your orders.

As you may have noticed, we offer a Thermal Transfer finish as one of the options you can choose during a Quote or Order. What exactly does that mean?

Before diving into a detailed explanation of Thermal Transfer, we first need to understand that “Thermal Transfer” and “Direct Thermal” are two very different animals and should not be confused. Product labels are not suited to Direct Thermal treatment, so it’s important to understand the difference. Direct Thermal printers rely on special heat-sensitive paper which create an image by applying heat directly to the required areas, which blackens the paper in those areas – common examples are gas station and restaurant receipts. It’s critical to understand that no ribbons are involved in this process – which is why it’s called “direct” thermal.

Conversely, “Thermal Transfer” printers use special ribbons with colored ink that gets melted by the printhead in the chosen areas and the ink “transferred” to the material being printed on (hence the name). This technology is often used by customers wishing to “overprint” product labels with variable data (such as expiry dates, lot numbers etc). In such cases, they leave a space in the label design specifically for this purpose – we print the main part of the label with all the fancy graphics etc and the customer then adds the variable content at a later time.

Here’s where it becomes tricky. In order for the Thermal Transfer inks to adhere properly to the pre-printed labels, we need to apply a special over-laminate during the initial printing that is specifically designed to accept the thermal transfer inks from the ribbons – normal laminates do not work well for this purpose and the inks will likely smudge or rub off completely.

So, if you do intend to over-print your beautiful labels with variable data, you will need to have a suitable printer in-house AND you also need the correct ribbons to match the special over-laminate we apply during the production process. Sorry to complicate it further still, but not all thermal transfer printers (or ribbons) are created equal. For example, there are wax ribbons, wax/resin ribbons and plain resin ribbons – all designed for different purposes. In the case of the thermal transfer over-laminate we carry, resin ribbons are usually the best bet (wax is least successful and wax-resin has mixed results).

With all that in mind, unless you’ve been down this road before and know exactly what to expect, it’s absolutely critical that you test some blank samples from us (which we’re happy to provide) on your own printer with your own ribbons. Never assume the combination of all the components will produce a workable result – there are too many things that can go horribly wrong unless you test thoroughly first.

Having done all that satisfactorily, you can then proceed to order your labels with confidence – choosing the “Thermal Transfer Laminate” option in the Label Finish section of your order so we know to apply that special over-laminate. Also remember that changing ribbon types or vendors later could easily undo all your good work – in which case further testing would be prudent.

Due to the complexities of the advanced equipment we use at Wizard Labels, there are some practical limitations that affect the amount of waste involved in printing very small quantities. In order to minimize this waste (and the consequent effect on the environment), we require the minimum quantity for each Version within an order to be at least 100 labels. In addition, the quantity for each version must also be a multiple of 50 labels (e.g. 100, 150, 200, 250 or similar).

Example: if your order is for a total of 2,500 custom labels for a BBQ Sauce spread across 5 different artwork versions (one for each flavor you offer), you might want 1,000 of one version, 500 each of the next two versions and 250 each for the remaining two versions (or some other logical breakdown to suit your business needs). However, in order to minimize unnecessary waste and to streamline the production process, the quantities for each version must also be in multiples of 50 labels. For example, you might order 250 of one version and 300 of another – but 275 or 325 are not acceptable quantities as they’re not evenly divisible by 50.

Why is this important? – because we print multiple versions side-by-side across the raw material, so having random quantities between versions is extremely inefficient and wasteful in every way. Does that mean all versions need to be the same quantity? Definitely not – but we may want to work with you and adjust some of them if possible. This usually only becomes necessary when we receive an order for many versions and the individual quantities are likely to create unnecessary waste (or extra time to break down in production). In such cases, we’ll reach out and see if there’s an acceptable compromise. In the end, it could save you money and at the same time minimize the environmental impact.

It’s also important to understand that every job has standard overheads associated with getting the artwork prepared for the press, then printed, die-cut, rolled, checked for quality, and packaged for shipping. And many of these costs are very similar regardless of the quantity involved. The best way to find out the impact of this is to experiment with our online quoter so you can immediately see the costs for various quantities – in many cases you will find that higher quantities will cost you very little (or even nothing if the quantities are low).

At Wizard Labels we offer three different kinds of label proofs, each of which has different uses depending on the circumstances:

1. PDF Proofs. All normal Production orders receive emailed PDF proofs by default (at no extra charge). We never go into production unless you’ve specifically approved the emailed proofs – this is our only way of knowing we correctly interpreted your instructions and pulled the correct artwork files for your order. Hence, it’s critical that you check the PDFs carefully – we can take no responsibility for errors that you didn’t pick up in the proofing process.
Important note: PDF proofs are for you to verify content only and should not be considered a reliable way to check colors. Computer screens display colors differently than printers do, and even different models of printer can produce variations in color.

2. Press Proofs. If you absolutely must see a physical proof of your order before we go into production, you can select that option during the ordering process (for an additional $95 fee). Press Proofs are printed on the same press(es) that your order will be, so they are the most accurate representation of what your finished labels will look like. However, Press Proofs consume time, material, and waste to produce and there are obvious delays in producing and delivering them to you. There is a limit of only one set of Press Proofs per order so we can minimize the amount of press down-time and keep production orders flowing. If for any reason you subsequently decide not to proceed with the order, we can easily cancel it and you’ll only be charged for the label proofs.

3. Concept Proofs. If you’re in the beginning stages of a label design project and need to see how various colors or layouts will look in production, we offer a facility called Concept Proofs, where your designer can test various approaches before choosing the final design. Again, there is a $95 fee for us to print an agreed selection of your artwork files (including delivery to you via UPS). Concept Proofs do not need an order to be placed first – your Customer Service representative will need to work with you to make the necessary arrangements and get the artwork files from you.

It’s important to note that both kinds of physical proofs do not have the same high priority as production orders, so there may be a delay of a day or two before they ship. We’ll do our best to squeeze them in between jobs in the least wasteful way, but production always comes first. If you have any questions about this process, please contact us and we can help advise the best approach for you.

Are you interested in learning more about Custom Consumer Products Labels? Contact us today to secure an expert consultation!