Label Design Tips and Tricks? (1 Viewer)

[bradiggy]

I've been playing around with the idea of turning my THC set that is very slowly coming together into a custom set. I know many of you outsource your label design but that isn't really my style. It's even been hard to accept that when this comes to fruition, I will likely have to outsource the label production to our local forum pro.

With that said, would anybody be willing to throw some tips/suggestions/ideas of label design and creation into the ring here? Hopefully not just for my benefit but for others considering taking the daunting task upon themselves. I'm willing to read and learn about design programs you might use, color use, fonts, size, etc. etc.

Below is my starting point, with clearly nowhere to go but up as far as design and quality goes

 

[Taghkanic]

I’d first suggest larger type for the key elements. At life size, a lot of that text is going to be tiny.

 

[Davism72]

Following!

 

[allforcharity]

With small text, I would consider NOT having the sticker background the same colour as your base chip. You'll be better off with a common background colour that makes the text easier to read.

 

[timinater]

Some general thoughts in no particular order.

• Print it off at size several times throughout the process - hold it at arms length and see what it looks like.
• Show it to somebody that doesn't know about your theme, etc. What do they "get" right away, what needs explaining?
• White text on black/dark backgrounds is a potential problem. Some printers struggle with small text on dark backgrounds.
• Play around with various layouts. and don't get married to any particular one, come back in a day or two and see how you feel about it again.

More general advice, you are making an investment in your chips - don't make the label design or the label printing the spots where you cut corners. There are many designers on this forum (plug: myself included) who can churn out great inlay designs and can supply a printer with professional quality files.

I have no doubts you can do it yourself, and if you want to do so you should - it will be rewarding to have the set 100% DIY. It will be time consuming, however. There are free apps out there that can do a similar job to the Adobe Creative Suite, but I can't provide a recommendation because I haven't used any of them, perhaps someone else can.

 

[Wifey]

Gear posted some tips and tricks for design near the bottom of his post on his FAQ thread.
Regardless of whether you use his label services or not, they are some pretty good guidelines for label design.

 

[bradiggy]

After reading through the suggestions here as well as Gear's thread, I decided downloading Inkscape would be my first step in the right direction. I used Adobe Illustrator many years ago but it took a few YouTube tutorials to get going!

Obviously I am still getting used to the features and functions of Inkscape but it could be a lot worse for my first try in my humble opinion! I gave up on the left version because the font has blank space in it - which I can imagine won't turn up well when printed.

 

[CantSpellPoker]

After reading through the suggestions here as well as Gear's thread, I decided downloading Inkscape would be my first step

I did this yesterday and almost had a stroke when I opened it up. Good job sticking around long enough to learn something, unlike me.

Supposed to get some snow here in NJ this weekend, maybe I’ll take another crack at it.

 

[bradiggy]

I did this yesterday and almost had a stroke when I opened it up. Good job sticking around long enough to learn something, unlike me.

Supposed to get some snow here in NJ this weekend, maybe I’ll take another crack at it.

Yeah I feel you...I learned basic Illustrator in a design course at school, luckily with that I have a small understanding of how the program operates (simple things like having to re-select the cursor after you complete any other function, transforming shapes/texts, grouping of objects). Once you get that down, learning more complex functions is much easier to learn - if that makes any sense. The possibilities are limitless, just have to commit the time to watching YouTube guides