Not every label is a rectangle.
Round, oval, triangle, heart, starburst, speech bubble. Cut to shape on an A4 sheet, so they still go through the printer you already own.
Thirteen families over 634 dies, and 168 of them are not rectangles. These are made to order rather than held on the shelf, so tell us the shape and the size and we will quote it.
After a plain rectangle? The stocked A4 range is through here — twenty-nine layouts in white and six colours, a hundred sheets to a box.
What a shaped label costs you, and what it buys.
Worth knowing before you fall in love with a starburst.
A shape reads before the words do
A round seal on a jar lid, a starburst on a price, a triangle on a warning. Somebody takes the meaning from across the room without reading anything, which is the whole point of the shape. On packaging that is already printed, a shaped label is also the honest way to add something without reprinting the lot.
Made to order, and the waste is real
Nothing here is on our shelf. These are cut to order, so there is a lead time and a minimum, and both depend on the die. A shape wastes sheet as well — the gaps around twenty-four hearts are gaps you are still paying for, which is why a rectangle of the same size always costs less per label. And a die that does not exist yet is a different conversation again.
Thirteen families. Pick the shape first.
Every picture is a real sheet from the range, and the size under it is the one in the picture. The number of sizes is how many dies that family has, not how many we stock — nothing here is stocked.
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Round 36 sizes · 15–200 mm
Jar lids, seals and anything that has to sit centred on a curve.
Shown: 57 × 57 mm, 12 per sheet -
Oval 18 sizes · 19–280 mm
A long label that does not read as a box. Common on bottles and food.
Shown: 98 × 52 mm, 10 per sheet -
Bottle, arch and dome 36 sizes · 25–256 mm
Square at the bottom, curved at the top, so it sits flat on a shoulder.
Shown: 140 × 98 mm, 4 per sheet · Dome -
Triangle 11 sizes · 20–279 mm
Warnings and grading marks. Nested on the sheet, so the waste is small.
Shown: 66 × 66 mm, 12 per sheet -
Starburst 7 sizes · 42–284 mm
The shape that means a price or an offer without reading a word of it.
Shown: 150 × 130 mm, 2 per sheet -
Speech bubble 5 sizes · 26–80 mm
For a message added to packaging that is already printed.
Shown: 57 × 50 mm, 12 per sheet -
Heart 4 sizes · 28–70 mm
Seasonal and gift lines. Four dies, from 28 mm up to 70 mm.
Shown: 45 × 41 mm, 24 per sheet -
Donut 4 sizes · 34–73 mm
A ring with the middle removed, for a spindle, a lid or a cable.
Shown: 40 × 40 mm, 20 per sheet -
CD and DVD 12 sizes · 42–118 mm
The standard disc sizes, with the centre hole already cut.
Shown: 78 × 78 mm, 6 per sheet · CD -
Octagon, leaf, arrow and more 13 sizes · 15–202 mm
The odd ones: octagon, star, leaf, rhombus, arrow, flag, light bulb.
Shown: 50 × 50 mm, 8 per sheet · Octagon -
Security 2 sizes · 27–67 mm
Slit so it tears if anybody lifts it. Tamper evidence, not decoration.
Shown: 30 × 30 mm, 48 per sheet -
Mixed sets 20 sizes · 25–270 mm
More than one size on the same sheet, for a job that needs both.
Shown: 193 × 91 mm, 3 per sheet -
Rectangle 466 sizes · 5–295 mm
The plain ones, and there are 466 of them, from 5 mm up to a full sheet.
Shown: 99 × 57 mm, 10 per sheet
These are the real dies, not our idea of them.
Every diagram on this page is the supplier's own drawing of that sheet, so the heart is their heart and the starburst has the number of points it actually has.
That matters more than it sounds. The first version of this page used shapes we drew ourselves from the sizes, and the triangles all pointed the same way. The real sheet nests them, alternating up and down, which is how twelve of them fit without wasting half the page. The picture was plausible and wrong, so it went.
Three things and we can quote it.
The shape, the size, and roughly how many sheets a year. None of them are compulsory — if you only know the shape, send that.
Not sure a sheet is what you want?
Send a photograph of the box, or of the thing you are labelling. Thirty-five years of this says the answer is usually obvious from the picture.