Designing Your Custom Labels

Before you even think about designing your label yourself you should find out the art specifications for the printer you are working with. Lightning Labels has a page devoted to Label Art Specs on our web site, and we recommend you read that first.

You will save a great deal of time and expense if you can give your label printer a label design that meets their specifications. Pretty much all printers work with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, so if you want to do it yourself spending some time getting to know that software would be a great investment. If you think that is too expensive and you buy some label software for $30 from your local computer store to design and print your labels yourself, the chances are you will have to start again when you move to a commercial label printer. Most of these inexpensive packages use proprietary formats that cannot be used outside of the program.

It is often easier to work with a professional graphic designer to design your labels. Before you do this you should make sure the designer knows the artwork specifications from your printer. Then comes the fun part - making your vision for your labels into a reality. A good designer will be able to bring together your vision into a design that will work well in the real world.

Spending some additional time in the design phase can really make a big difference in your satisfaction with your finished labels. Hiring a good designer or gaining extensive knowledge of Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator will help you avoid the many headaches that often occur when starting out with a commercial label printer. If this all sounds too hard, Lightning Labels has an internal design staff who will be happy to take care of the entire project for you.