A bleed is the extension of a background color/pattern beyond the edge of the product label. Utilizing a bleed ensures that the design won’t be cut off during the die cutting process.

We require 1/8″ (0.125″) of bleed on all sides of your product label. When dealing with circles, ovals, and unique shapes, it is important to size your art 1/4″ larger overall to cover the requisite 1/8″ bleed at each side.

If an image or text is too close to the finished edge of your custom label, it may be accidentally trimmed off during the die cutting process. To avoid this, you need to keep at least 1/16″ (.063″) of space between the die line and any image or text. This clear space is called the margin, while the area inside it is the “safe area”…the area that you can safety assume your text or images won’t get cut off.

With a finished product label size of 3″ x 4″, the clear zone is 1/16″ (.063″) smaller on ALL sides or 1/8″ (.125″) overall — for a total size of 2 7/8″ (2.875″) x 3 7/8″ (3.875″). (Make sure you know the corner radius (rounded corner) of your finished product label as you need to account for this in your artwork.)

It’s important that your product label artwork has sufficient safe area when dealing with ovals, circles, and other special shapes. In fact, it’s best to create artwork with more than the requisite 1/16″ (.063″) clear space for oval and circular product labels.

Feel free to contact us if you have any questions about size or format for printing product labels.

Unwind direction (sometimes also called wind direction) refers to the orientation of the labels as they come off the roll (i.e., as you unwind the roll of labels). The label industry has developed standard descriptions for the various unwind directions to avoid any confusion. For example, Unwind Direction #1 (Top Off First) indicates that the top of the label will be the leading edge when the roll is unwound.

While unwind directions are often not very important if you apply the labels to your products by hand, they are critical for making your products and labels are aligned correctly if your labels are applied by machine.

Unsure how your printed labels on a roll should unwind? Contact us and we’ll be happy to help!

Absolutely! We have a high-tech digital die cutting machine that can cut almost any shape on virtually any material (with a couple of minor exceptions).

Most label printers without such equipment require custom-made dies to cut special shapes — which can cost you several hundreds of dollars and involve extra delays.

Note: In order for our digital die cutting equipment to cut your custom shape correctly, your artwork files need to include a vector dieline showing precisely where to cut the shape. Your graphic designer should know how to create a vector dieline.

Which color mode should my graphic designer use when designing my product labels? That’s easy: The answer is CMYK!

RGB (Red, Green, and Blue) is a three-color combination used by computer monitors and TV screens. Since our digital presses use CMYK mode, printing a product label that’s designed in RGB mode can result in significant color distortion. It’s therefore critical that your designer create your artwork files in CMYK mode to maintain accurate colors for your product label.

Sorry, no. Our business focus, and what we do exceptionally well, is printing high-quality labels from customer-supplied artwork — not serving as a design agency. Design and printing are two distinctly different specialties, and each demands and deserves 100% commitment to ensure the best results. So, unless you have ready access to the required design skills and tools, we recommend you find a professional graphic designer to work with.

Since there is no “standard” size for any container, we also can’t help you decide what size or shape your labels will be. That’s where a competent packaging designer needs to be involved, as the size and shape of your labels depends on what text you need on the label, what images are involved, and so on. Label design and layout is a very complex process, and you’d be best served by working with somebody who understands the unique intricacies of product label design. Feel free to contact us and we can refer you to some label design specialists we recommend.

Similarly, if you need expert guidance on regulatory requirements (i.e., what legal terminology you may need to include on your product labels), we’re not qualified in this area, and you’ll need to research these elsewhere. Once you have print-ready artwork, we’ll be delighted to take care of the actual production part of the equation.

We occasionally get questions like this from customers who’ve had bad experiences with other printing companies. In fact, the printing industry has always faced challenges with color consistency. The older traditional analog presses use liquid inks that are often hand-mixed for each job, or kept in bottles until they’re needed sometime in the future. The process of ink mixing has certainly improved over time, but it’s still somewhat reliant on human involvement and individual judgment.

At Dynamic Labels, we use only the latest digital presses, and we calibrate them very frequently (often several times a day) to ensure that any deviation in color can be minimized as much as possible.

Can minor color variations still occur between calibrations? Yes, it’s possible. But any such shifts are typically not noticeable to the human eye, and frequent calibrations also reduce the amount of variation even more. So, within reason, you can expect excellent color consistency regardless of how much time elapses between your orders.

Due to the complex nature of our advanced equipment, there are some practical limitations that affect the amount of waste involved in printing very small quantities. In order to minimize this waste (and the consequent effect on the environment), we require the minimum quantity for each version within an order to be at least 100 labels. In addition, the quantity for each version must also be a multiple of 50 labels (e.g., 100, 150, 200, 250, or similar).

It’s also important to understand that every job has standard overheads associated with getting the artwork prepared for the press, then printed, die cut, rolled, checked for quality, and packaged for shipping. And many of these costs are very similar regardless of the quantity involved.

It’s not uncommon for customers to want to include white ink in parts of their labels — especially if they’re using chrome or clear material. If you want to use white ink in this way, there are a couple of ways to incorporate it during the design process, depending on which software the designer is using:

Our preferred file format is Adobe Illustrator, which is a vector-based program that produces the best printed results. If your designer is using Illustrator, the process of adding white ink is relatively simple. They simply need to lay out the white ink on a separate layer with a custom spot color, then name that layer “white ink.” It also helps if they make the “white” swatch 100% Cyan and 100% Yellow (100/0/100/0) so the white ink areas appear bright green in the artwork and very obvious to our prepress technicians. We will then use that layer to tell the press where to print white ink.

Note: It’s also possible (though slightly more complicated) to add a white layer in Photoshop. That said, a competent designer should know how to do this.

Alternatively, if your designer is using software that doesn’t support layers and/or is producing “image files” (e.g., jpg, png, or any other raster files with minimal ability for us to manipulate them) they should lay out the chosen “white areas” in a separate file and assign black as the color (so it’s visible on the screen). We will assume that any areas showing as black in that file should be superimposed in the original design and set to print white.

Also assume that anywhere no color is defined in the artwork, no ink will be printed and the background will show through. In the case of clear material, this will be the product itself, but on chrome, it will be the shiny silver metallic material.

Certainly, but within reason. For example, if you order a total of 2,500 custom labels for a juice spread across 5 different artwork versions — one for each flavor you offer — you might want 1,000 of one version, 500 each of the next two versions, and 250 each of the remaining two versions (or some other logical breakdown to suit your business needs). However, in order to minimize unnecessary waste and streamline the production process, the quantities for each version must also be in multiples of 50 labels. For example, you might order 250 of one version and 300 of another, but 275 or 325 are not acceptable quantities as they’re not evenly divisible by 50.

Why is this important? Because we print multiple versions side-by-side across the raw material, so having random quantities between versions is inefficient and creates waste. Does that mean all versions need to be the same quantity? Definitely not, but we may want to work with you and adjust some of them if possible. This usually only becomes necessary when we receive an order for multiple versions and the individual quantities are likely to create unnecessary waste (or extra time to break down in production). In such a case, we’ll reach out and see if there’s an acceptable compromise. In the end, it could save you money and minimize the environmental impact.

Customers often request different versions of their labels to alternate along the roll — front/back/front/back, etc. — so the labels can be applied on an automated applicator that “spins” the container past the roll and ends up with both labels applied in a single pass.

We also sometimes get requests for multiple versions to be grouped sequentially and repeated along the finished roll (e.g., A/B/C/D, then A/B/C/D, and so on). In both cases, we refer to the combined groupings as “sets” in order to differentiate them from the standard approach of each version having its own roll.

We can certainly make these special arrangements happen in production, but we need specific instructions from the customer during the ordering phase to make sure we understand what’s required.

Another complication that can occur is if the individual versions are different sizes (e.g., a front label that measures 3” x 4” and a back label that measures 2” x 5” — which is not unusual in the wine industry). Ordering non-standard combinations is best handled under supervision of our customer service staff who can tell you precisely how the process flow works.

Because of the different factors involved, this type of order needs to be placed through the people in our shop. Please contact us to get started!

Well, it depends. While it’s possible most of the time, it depends on the size of the label and the quantity of labels you need on a roll. You will need to discuss your needs with your customer service representative so we can make sure we understand the underlying reasons and recommend the best approach.

We have both Glassine (Paper/Kraft) liner as well as poly liner. Our standard is Glassine liner, unless clearly specified during the time of the order.

Yes, we offer a variety of options, such as gloss or matte with options in varnish and lamination. Our state-of-the-art, seven-color, UV Inkjet platform provides excellent durability. Our standard offering is without coating because of the excellent performance, even in harsh environments. However, we do understand you might have various functional needs based on a specific application, and, as a result, offer several coating options. When you place your order, please clearly specify the varnish or lamination option you would like to choose.