Tips for Designing Labels

Keep your Audience in Mind

What are you trying to communicate? If it’s an asset number, you may want to be inconspicuous.  If you are warning of a hazard, you will want your label to stand out.  If there are industry standards that dictate the way you communicate something, you will want to adhere to them.   Keep your target market in mind, and come up with words and phrases that are relevant to that specific population.

Choose the Right Material

After you have your target market nailed down, it’s time to choose the material that will be the building blocks of your labels. In addition to what gets printed on each label, the physical appearance of the labels themselves and the durability of the material is something that needs to be considered.

If you are applying your labels to items like glass bottles or jars, paper labels can work well. If you ware using the label in a cleanroom environment, you want to avoid paper labels and choose a synthetic facestock.  Facestock comes in several different finishes including hi gloss, semi-gloss, and matte. Ask The type of facestock may also affect what you can print on the labels, such as metallic foil.

For extremely durable labels, films are a good choice for the facestock. Film material options include vinyl, BOPP (which stands for Biaxially Oriented Polypropylene), and polyester film, often called PET -  to name a few.

If you need labels for glass applications, such as labels on goggles or glasses, consider a static cling labels. These labels are made of vinyl and require no adhesive, making them very easy to remove.

Speaking of adhesive, if you’re not using static electricity with a static cling label, you’ll need to consider what type of adhesive will go under your label facestock. Adhesive comes in four main types: permanent, all temperature, removable, and repositionable. Both permanent and all temperature adhesives are very strong and designed not to be moved. If your label is used in a critical environment, make sure that adhesive is low outgassing. 

Carefully Select Colors

Process color is made up of four different ink colors: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, known as CMYK. This method of printing uses tiny dots printed in each of the four colors to create images, as opposed to spot color.

Some label types and sizes will limit your ability to print colors, the staff at UtlraTape can help you select the color scheme that will work with your label.  We can also offer you special printing options such as fluorescent inks, foils, embossing, and more.

Building a label requires a partner that understands your application, your message, and the science of label-making.  UltraTape has decades of experience in creating adhesive labels for a variety of industrial and cleanroom applications.