Labels are very precise kinds of prints. Unlike big posters or even banners and flyers which have large spaces to work with, color labels have only a limited area by which you can design on. This means that for most designers of labels, accuracy is key in every layout they make. This kind of accuracy does not only come from your artistic discipline, but also with your design software and its features.
In this special tutorial for label design, we will discuss several layout tricks that will help you accurately manipulate some of the major features of the text and images of your design. Just read through these tricks and try to directly apply them to your own label printing.
Text accuracy: Character Spacing
The first trick that should let you manage the text of your labels is character spacing. While there is a standard setting for all your characters in a label layout, you can actually tweak this in some software applications to make the characters sit closer together for further apart.
In image design applications like Photoshop, doing this is as simple as entering a spacing value of plus or minus 100 in the text editing panel. Positive values add more space and negative values makes the characters more closer together. This can save you a lot of space and fit your text precisely where you want them to in your color labels.
Text accuracy: Line Spacing
Another great trick that will help you format your text precisely is to edit its line spacing. Most text have a standard single line spacing set for them. However, did you know that you can actually edit this in most applications? You can of course increase that size to 1.5 spacing or even double and triple spacing if you like.
Beyond that though, some software can also let you set a precise line spacing distance by just setting a font size point value. In this way your 36pt sized fonts can have the line spacing that 28pt fonts have. This helps you manage the space between lines of text, enlarging them or shortening them for a more accurate design and text area.
Image Accuracy: Precise Scaling
Now, in terms of images, you should always try to be accurate when using them for your custom labels. You will not want a distorted image embedded in those all important label layouts of course. Most design applications should be able to let you scale down your images to fit precisely in the area you want. In most cases you can actually enter a pixel value of a set width or height and have the software automatically compute the reduced size with the corresponding aspect ratio. In this way you will not ruin the image of course, but you can fit it precisely to a size that best fits your custom label designs.
Image Accuracy: Precise Cropping
Do not forget that many desktop publishing applications can offers some really precise cropping tools. In Adobe Photoshop for example, you can actually cut out certain elements of images and not just lift rectangular areas from them. Tools like the magic wand tool can help you remove or add the area that you want without bothering the main contours of the primary object that you are working with. This helps you place in more seamless looking images that really fit in nicely with the background and them of your color labels.
Blending Options
Keep in mind also that there are also special blending tricks and options that should help you integrate text and images readily to a label layout. Using blending options like shadow effects and border effects can typically make certain design elements stand out or look something else. With the correct styles and colors, you can make all your elements blend more effectively to your layout, making the whole label look more coherent and of course understandable.
Now you know precisely what tricks you can try out and what settings you can change so that your color labels get the best design that really fits well with the most integrated and coherent of elements.
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