Labels are something which we all wonder about and it is one of the important things when you are planning to sell.

Labels, a part of branding plays an important role in a product. Because labels are the first thing that will stand out when you have an exhibition or a website. Before using your product, they will see your branding and that is why it is important to make awesome labels!

And even if for no one, make it for you. Give your product your name!

For me, labelling is a huge process. Whenever I want to change my labels or introduce something new, It takes like a day or so, I dedicate it for labelling. This is the day when we all can visit our childhood days!

Get your pens, pencils, colours and with a few stacks of plain paper!

Step 1 – What kind of feel do you want to give to your brand? What does your brand stand for?

I loved this entire idea of having my own Apothecary.

Old Apothecary

In the olden times, people knew the power of plants and herbs as medicine, and that is how they use to store herbs and decoctions and tinctures. I always wanted to make my apothecary like that and that’s how I wanted my labels to be.

My idea of Natural, Herbal, Phyto and my love for vintage got me to this.

Find your own style! If you don’t know where to start,

Pinterest is one such great place to take inspiration.

just find out inspirations on google – Labels, floral labels, cosmetic labels, food labels, indie cosmetic labels, artisanal cosmetic labels, designs, logos etc. See what brand appeals to you the most, what style do you like? what colours do you want to use, black and white?

Step 2. Then write down what things you need to add to the label –

Brand Name, Name of the product, Phone Number, Ingredients, MRP – Depending on what product or type you are making for.

Step 3 – Take out the container you designing the label for. Take the measurements roughly with a scale.

Step 4 – Take some plain paper and cut one piece according to the given size. This will be the size of your label. Place it on a bottle, and see if the label is in the right measurements. Adjust it as you want and take the final measurement. Cut a few of them. Stack them up.

When I started designing my labels, I did not want to draw on white paper since I wanted to make vintage types of paper. So I tea washed my paper to get that vintage feels.

How to make vintage papers – Made a decoction of tea. Poured it in a big Tray, Placed a few plain papers one by one, front and behind, and then dried them. This gave a Rusty vintage kind of feeling to my papers.

Step 5 – Place the Contents onto the Paper.

Now start placing the things that you need to put on that label. Where will you place what? Like the name of the product in the middle, upper side or below. draw rectangle boxes of the place they are going to occupy.

Step 6 – Experiment and Try New Things

Try different ways. If you want to add some elements just draw and maybe colour as what it may look like. You don’t have to be an artist to do so. You are just giving concept to your design. If there are colours or paints, try painting them.

If you want your background to be colourful, or something, draw it, sketch it, use paints. You can try colourful paper to check the designs.

I started with different designs. Initially, I tried to complete Vintage. the swirls, the names way they wrote. I failed! One-piece by other, I kept trying, changed the positions, the elements, how did I write, borders etc, and finally came to this thing which I fell in love with – A huge border and A small place in the centre and the border will be of my Zentangle designs

I am still playing around with the fonts and all but I know this is what my labels will be like.

These are not final, but this is what it will look like overall. Vintage for my tincture bottles and white for my tinctures in making bottles.

Step 7 – How will it look on bottles?

When you complete one design, place it on the bottle and see, if it looks good, what can be changed.

Step 8 – Finalising the design and then digitising them.

Once you are satisfied with your design, you can now digitally convert it to make labels.

If you are not well versed in doing it on your own, every big printing shop will have “DPT Operators”. These people can execute the things given by you using different software. You can give your idea and measurements and he will help you out with it.

If you have friends or loved ones who can help you out, do ask them to help you!

This will give you a clear idea as to how will your labels look like. It will be easy for the person who is going to replicate it or make it, easy to imagine.