Packaging and label design

A label gets three seconds on the shelf. We design so three is enough.

Packaging is the only piece of communication your customer actually holds. On a crowded shelf, a label has a few seconds to get picked — and no second chance.

We design packaging and labels for the people who live off that moment: wineries, craft breweries, dairies, food producers, product brands. From concept to final artwork to a managed print run. We work from Sardinia, where the product is often extraordinary and the pack rarely does it justice.

On packaging we hold one firm belief: beautiful is not enough — it has to be recognisable. Beauty makes someone pick up the bottle once. Recognition makes them buy it again.

WHAT'S INCLUDED

What's included.

  • TRY IT

    The file starts on your printer’s die line, not on a mockup.

    The die line

    Flat: the printer’s file, front printed

  • 02

    Labels for wine, beer and food

    Front, back and capsule for wine. Can and bottle for beer. Jars, wraps and packs for cheese, preserves and baked goods. One label or the full range, with a system that keeps each product distinguishable at a glance.

  • 03

    Primary and secondary packaging

    Boxes, cartons, sleeves, pouches, bags, gift packs. The primary pack protects and presents; the secondary one ships, stacks and gets gifted. We design them together, because your customer sees them together.

  • 04

    Coordinated stationery

    Business cards, letterhead, email signature and printed materials aligned with the brand. If the label says one thing and the business card another, the brand breaks.

  • 05

    Die-cut paths, bleeds, overprint, separated Pantone inks, finishing specs. Final artwork is where good designs fail — we prepare it to your printer's specifications, not to a generic template.

  • 06

    If you want, we run the whole flow: printer selection, quotes, colour proofs, first-run check. One contact from brief to delivered pallet.

METHOD
Packaging has a constraint digital design doesn't: once printed, there is no deploy to fix it. Every step exists to remove risk before the press starts.

Brief and constraints

Research and concept

Development

Artwork and proof

Print and delivery

TOOLS

What we build it with.

Projects are built in Illustrator for vector paths and die-cuts, Photoshop for imagery, InDesign for multi-page coordinated materials. Critical colours travel as Pantone inks, with controlled CMYK conversion. You evaluate the design on 3D mockups at real scale — the bottle with your label, the box open and closed — and the same renders work for your shop and social channels before the product is even printed. On the press side we use the finishes that give a label its texture: natural and embossed papers, hot foil, blind embossing, UV varnish. Never as decoration, only when the positioning earns them. A €30 wine on the shelf should also look like a €30 wine.

  • Adobe Illustrator
  • Photoshop
  • InDesign
  • Pantone
  • 3D mockups
  • Colour proof
  • Hot foil
  • Blind embossing
THE POINT

The mistakes that shorten a label's life

After years of food and beverage work, we keep seeing the same four.

  1. Designing on screen, printing blind

    A label approved on a backlit monitor is a bet: colours shift, paper absorbs, the real format is smaller than it looked. That's why we insist on real-scale mockups and a colour proof.

  2. Filling every centimetre

    The urge to say everything — history, territory, awards, pairings — produces labels that say nothing. Hierarchy wins: one element that hooks from a distance, the rest legible up close.

  3. Copying the category leader

    If your Vermentino looks like the best-selling Vermentino, you just paid to be mistaken for someone else. Category codes exist to be understood, so you know where to break them.

  4. Treating the range as separate labels

    Every new product designed in isolation erodes the system. We design the first label with the tenth in mind: one structure, recognisable variants, room to grow.

The shelf is the test

Packaging isn't judged in a presentation — it's judged with the product sitting among its competitors, and as part of a wider brand system.

  1. Sardinian products, crowded categories

    The labels of Nuraghe Antigori, the wines of SadiTappo.Wine, the packs of Caseificio Deidda, the craft beer of Birrificio Nanumoru: same problem, standing out without dressing up as something else.

  2. Packaging inside the identity

    For LOWE the identity lives on packaging, merchandising, signage and interiors; for Fionard the graphics printed on the garments are the product.

  3. The brand first, the label after

    If the brand doesn't exist yet, start with branding and logo. The other way round means building your label on temporary foundations.

SERVICE

Real projects.

The Nuraghe Antigori range lined up: Cardile white, Spantu rosé, Pedra Scritta and Spantau reds, and the two dark octagonal bottles

Nuraghe Antigori

Six organic references and two bottle formats held together by a single mark: the square returns on every label in two sizes and changes metal with the wine, instead of changing design.

Packaging/ 24
SERVICE

Frequently asked.

It depends on the scope: a single label or a full range, a standard pack or a custom die-cut, with or without coordinated stationery and print management. Tell us format, print runs and deadlines at /en/quote/ and you get a dedicated quote, written and free.

Design takes 2–4 weeks: brief, concept, development and revisions, final artwork. Printing adds 1–2 weeks depending on the printer, materials and finishes. If you have a deadline — harvest, trade fair, launch — it goes into the plan on day one.

Yes. We work with selected printers in Sardinia and across Italy: we collect quotes, follow the colour proofs and check the first run. If you already have a printer you trust, we prepare the artwork to their specifications and deal with them directly.

The mandatory content — ingredients, allergens, alcohol content, lot number, legal references — is defined by you and your consultant, because it varies by product and market. We build it into the layout, respecting minimum sizes and legibility without sacrificing the design.

Yes. On delivery you get the print-ready PDFs and the open files, with usage rights transferred. Reprint whenever you want, with any printer you want — today or in five years. If you change format or add a product, we adapt the files without starting over.

Packaging and labels

A label gets three seconds on the shelf. We design so three is enough.

Per project

The price depends on the scope: one label or one pack from concept to print-ready files, coordinated stationery, a product range, a custom die-cut, a project that starts from the logo. Printing is paid directly to the printer, with quotes shown before proceeding: no hidden markup. If the product also sells online, the project can continue with the [shop](/en/services/ecommerce/) — the box that lands at home is the brand's last touchpoint, and often its most photographed.

WHAT'S INCLUDED

  • Labels for wine, beer and food
  • Primary and secondary packaging — boxes, cartons, pouches
  • Coordinated stationery and printed materials
  • Print-ready artwork files
  • Mockups and colour proofs
  • Print management with selected printers