Label Sizing
The decision about what size your product labels should be is impossible for us to answe. There are many things that impact the final size including: intended content, regulatory needs, visual impact, and container the label is going onto.
That said, there are a couple of critical points you should keep in mind when commencing the design project:
1. First, being a proudly all-American company, we work in inches (not millimeters or centimeters) – so your artwork files should be set up using imperial measurements. Also be aware that all commercial design software utilizes decimals when defining “parts of an inch”, so a label intended to be 3-3/4” by 6-3/8” would be set up in the software as 3.75 x 6.375.
2. In order to keep our production processes as efficient as possible and to minimize time and cost to you, our online Quoting/Ordering system always rounds dimensions to the nearest 1/32” of an inch (0.031”) for all regular shapes (rectangles, circles, ovals, squares). It will also round all dimensions to 3 decimal places – again for the purposes of consistency and efficiency. So, if you enter (say) dimensions of 3.4198 x 5.674, the Quoter will automatically adjust those to 3.406 (which is 3-13/32) by 5.688 (or 5-11/16).
Those very subtle adjustments (which are in effect never more than 1/64” in either direction) are indiscernible to the human eye and they help us maintain our industry-leading turn-times and super-competitive pricing. The one exception is if you’re ordering a Special shape (e.g. a curved label or some other irregular outline) where the finished label has no normal height/width relationships – in such cases the Quoter will accept any dimensions you choose.
If you need us to provide a template for them to work from, we’re happy to help. We can supply a starting template sized correctly and containing the appropriate die-line, bleed line, and clear space line, to make their life simpler – at no charge.
One last tip… be very careful using design templates from other label companies or container manufacturers. Unless the dimensions are very simple (e.g. 3 x 4) it’s quite possible that they won’t meet our needs (which after all are also your needs).