Label Planet
How the KISS principle can help you to create perfectly practical label designs.
If you haven’t heard of it before the “KISS” principle stands for “Keep It Simple Stupid” and states that most things work best if they are kept simple (i.e. they don’t have unnecessary complications) and therefore simplicity should be a key consideration during the design phase.
This principle is a useful concept to keep in mind when it comes to designing and printing your own labels; many people start off with a very complicated (albeit beautiful) design in their head, only to find that it is extremely difficult to reproduce that design accurately – often leading to a waste of time, money, effort, and labels.
Starting off with a simpler, more straightforward design is a quick and easy way to save yourself the headache – with the added benefit that label designs with less content and less complexity often end up looking much cleaner, attractive, and professional than “busy” designs (that often look messy and even illegible).
Here at Label Planet, if you’re doing anything more complicated than a single image or a single block of text, we highly recommend taking a moment to draw a quick sketch of what you want your labels to look like. Simply tracing out where all the bits of your label design should fit can help to give you a better idea of where to start when you come to add your design to your template – and how to go about building up your elements to produce your final design. It also gives you a chance to see if your design actually WORKS in the way you need it to and to play around with different versions to see if there’s a better way of arranging your elements to make your labels more effective.
If you’re also intending to add a LOT of text (for example, a list of ingredients, health and safety warnings, or instructions for use etc), we also recommend taking the time to type up your text FIRST, so you know exactly how much room you need for your text (and how much space is left for adding more decorative elements around your text) – or even if you perhaps need to consider cutting down your text or dividing your text over a couple of labels (rather than scrunching it all up onto one).
While the prospect of designing your own labels might seem like an opportunity to create a really “unique” design, you need to bear in mind that it is YOU who will have to actually recreate your ideas in a label template. You need to consider how confident and experienced you are when it comes to using software for design purposes – as well as how sophisticated (and accurate) your software is when it comes to replicating a design. If your software simply can’t perform a particular task to create a specific part of your design OR if you simply don’t know how to use the more advanced features of your software, then it really may well be worth simplifying things into something that you know you are able to recreate successfully instead of wasting time struggling with something more complicated.
Remember, there are lots of ways to create unique labels that DON’T rely on complicated designs and advanced design tools – and there are plenty of forums and sites available online for you to pick up hints and tips on how to use your software to create some pretty amazing designs and effects.
It’s also worth remembering that you probably decided to design and print your own labels as a way to save yourself some time and money by not dealing with a design company and/or printing company – it’s not worth doing it yourself if you only end up wasting time trying to set up a needlessly complicated design.