"We had to refresh our label system fast," said Rina, Head of Packaging at Nusa Spice Co. in Jakarta. "New SKUs were landing every week, and our shelf sets needed a uniform look across jars and gift packs." We started by mapping a timeline—evaluation, pilot, calibration, ramp-up—then built the design guardrails for the brand’s spicy, earthy palette.
In the first strategy session, we pulled reference data from prior flexo runs and samples produced via Digital Printing. We also cross-checked community resources from sticker giant tutorials and internal mood boards to align color stories and finishing cues. The goal wasn’t perfection; it was a repeatable label system that felt human and honest on glass.
Month by month, the plan took shape: substrate trials on Labelstock with Glassine liners, UV-LED Ink selections for consistency, a G7-led calibration path, and a pilot sprint on three hero SKUs. Here’s how that timeline unfolded—and what actually stuck when we got to shelf.
Company Overview and History
Nusa Spice Co. has been crafting blends for Southeast Asian home cooks for over a decade. Their retail core: compact spice jars with labels that carry clean typography and a color-forward band system. Historically, the team leaned on Flexographic Printing for longer seasonal runs, pairing kraft-inspired textures with simple varnishes. As the e-commerce side grew, variability and speed became non-negotiable.
The original packaging system was built around a few anchor shades—turmeric gold, chili red, lemongrass green—rendered on matte Labelstock. When the brand extended into gift sets and mini jars, the number of SKUs doubled in under 12 months. Flexo remained strong for steady heroes, but shorter runs, tight deadlines, and regional specials started tripping changeovers.
Our remit as designers was to keep the brand’s tactile warmth while opening the door to on-demand labels and variable data. That meant exploring Digital Printing with UV-LED Ink on Labelstock, reserving Spot UV as an accent, and choosing a finish that felt natural on glass—not glossy for gloss’s sake.
Quality and Consistency Issues
Early audits revealed color drift between presses: reds and greens were landing outside target ΔE ranges, often around 4–5 when the team needed closer to 2–3 for reliable shelf matching. Humidity played a role—jar condensation, tropical warehouse cycles—and every extra pass to nudge shades meant more waste and schedule friction.
Q: how to print on avery labels for small test drops? A: We ran a controlled batch on Avery labelstock during the pilot to teach the team a simple alignment workflow—print at 1200 dpi, lock profiles to ISO 12647 references, verify with a handheld spectro, then sign off with G7-derived targets. That minimized the guesswork and gave non-press operators a practical color check.
We logged baselines: waste at roughly 7–9%, changeovers hovering around 25 minutes, ppm defects often in the 120–150 range during humid weeks. None of that was dire, but for fast-turn short runs, it added up. The design system needed tighter front-end controls so operators weren’t fighting color at the back end.
Solution Design and Configuration
We proposed a Digital Printing line (UV-LED Printing) for short-run and on-demand labels, keeping Flexographic Printing for the steady volumes. The design stack: Labelstock with a Glassine liner, UV-LED Ink for stability, a soft-touch Varnishing option on the premium SKUs, and selective Spot UV on varietal icons. Resolution at 1200 dpi helped hold micro-type, and tighter registration controls contained banded color fields without haloing.
Color management became the spine: G7 for gray balance, ISO 12647 for references, and a ΔE target of 2.0–2.5 for the main shades. We built a profile library and a simple preflight routine—one-click proofing, then press checks at 50-sheet intervals. Based on insights we’ve seen in sticker giant projects, we kept embellishments modest; high-contrast Spot UV only where a tactile cue was worth the ink.
For micro-SKU campaigns, the brand trialed community templates to make your own labels free for sampling kits—useful for content testing before committing to a formal run. And because the marketing team was piloting pop-up displays, we pushed a color stress-test on a giant wall sticker using the same palette to ensure cross-medium consistency. A small promo batch went online with a sticker giant coupon code to collect feedback on readability and finish preference; not scientific, but it surfaced real-world preferences fast.
Quantitative Results and Metrics
Six months in, the numbers felt steady. Color accuracy tightened to a ΔE range of roughly 2.0–2.5 on brand-critical reds and greens. First Pass Yield (FPY%) climbed to the 93–96 band on short-run labels. Throughput in the digital cell rose by about 15–18%, with changeovers now taking 5–7 minutes less on average thanks to simpler profile hand-offs.
Waste settled around 4–5% on typical weeks, and ppm defects tracked near 70–90 when humidity spiked. Payback Period for the digital kit penciled in at around 10–12 months, given the volume of short SKUs and seasonal promos. It wasn’t a magic wand—some glass curvature and adhesive behavior on humid days still nudged edges—but the line felt dependable.
On shelf, the jars read more consistently. The label banding spoke the same visual language across minis and gift sets, and the tactile finish stayed honest to the brand. For me, the lesson was simple: design restraint plus disciplined profiles beats heavy ornamentation. We closed the timeline with a live color guide for the team, a few process notes, and a quiet nod to what we learned from sticker giant playbooks along the way.
