The shelf test in label design

What we do on screen when designing a label is often the exact opposite of what happens in real life. On screen we zoom in and study every letter one by one. The customer, on the other hand, sees the product on a supermarket shelf, next to ten other jars, for a few seconds.

That's why, before I call a label finished, I do a simple test. I print it out, cut it to its real size and wrap it around the product. Then I put it next to similar products and take a few steps back. Sometimes I do this on a photo of a supermarket shelf, sometimes in the kitchen cupboard at home.

What's left when you step back?

From two metres back, the only things you can usually read are the product name and a colour. The logo, ingredients, weight and decorations disappear. So the first question I try to answer is this: Can someone looking from a distance tell what this product is and who it belongs to?

With products like olive oil, honey and jam, the shelf is already full of browns, greens and golden yellows. When everyone picks the same colours to look "natural", the products blend into each other. Sometimes the only right move is to step a little away from the category's usual colours.

What do we see up close?

When the customer picks the product up, the second reading begins. This is where ingredients, origin and usage information come in. This information needs to be organised and easy to read, but it shouldn't compete on the front. That's what the back label is for.

Mandatory information should be on the table from the start

On food and cosmetics labels, the barcode, batch number, expiry date, manufacturer details and sometimes a nutrition table are mandatory. If you try to squeeze these in after the design is done, the label falls apart. When I start a job, I ask the client for the full list of these texts and set aside the space right at the beginning.

The material can change everything

The same design looks completely different on a coated label, on kraft paper or on a clear label. On a clear label without white ink, light colours disappear. On kraft paper, colours come out darker. If possible, asking the printer for a small test print is much cheaper than reprinting thousands of labels later.

You get a five-second chance on the shelf. All the effort in label design goes into making good use of those five seconds.