The packaging artwork checklist to run before you go to print

• □Dieline supplied by the converter or printer, not lifted from a design presentation.
• □Dieline is the current revision, and you can prove it.
• □Bottle or container CAD is at 1:1, verified rather than assumed.
• □Artwork output at 1:1 and physically held against a sample before approval.
• □Label dimensions confirmed independently of the visual, from the CAD.

• □Printer or converter engaged before the design is signed off, not after.
• □Registration tolerances confirmed in writing for this job, on this press.
• □Minimum line weight and minimum type size confirmed for the process.
• □Achievable gaps between foil, varnish and print confirmed.
• □Any constraint that changes the design fed back while it can still change.

• □Special colours and process build decided deliberately, not inherited from the design file.
• □Every Pantone reference specified against the substrate it will print on.
• □Colour never signed off from a digital proof on a metallised, uncoated or textured stock.
• □Wet proof or press proof scheduled where the pack warrants it.
• □Colour behaviour across different printers and pack sizes considered for a range.

• □Foil, emboss, deboss and varnish each on their own named, separated layer.
• □No butt joins between foil and varnish. Traps specified deliberately.
• □Foil and emboss registering to the same element flagged as the tightest tolerance on the job.
• □Embellishment artwork built to the tolerance the printer confirmed, not to the tolerance you would like.
• □Substrate and finish interaction checked: what a soft-touch laminate does to a foil, and to colour.

• □Illustration briefs to external illustrators carry production tolerances and minimum line weights up front.
• □Fine detail and hairlines checked at final printed size, not on screen at 400 per cent.
• □Reverse-out type checked at final size on the actual substrate and process.
• □Detail that cannot hold on the chosen process resolved at design stage, not rescued at artwork stage.

• □Regulatory and legal copy approved by the client in writing, at final size.
• □Barcode magnification, quiet zones and bar-to-substrate contrast verified.
• □Language variants and market-specific requirements accounted for per SKU.
• □Volume, ABV, allergen and country-of-origin statements checked against the current requirement, not last year’s.

• □Fonts outlined or supplied. Images at final size and resolution. Links embedded.
• □Layer naming a printer can read without needing to ring you.
• □A specification sheet accompanying the artwork: substrate, processes, colours, finishes, tolerances.
• □Version control that makes it obvious which file is current.

Two of these checks account for most of the expensive failures. The first is scale. A design can arrive beautifully resolved and still be built on a container drawing at the wrong size, which means the label is the wrong size too. Nothing downstream reveals it, because the artwork looks correct on screen at every stage. It only becomes visible on a physical sample, which is why the 1:1 output is not optional.

The second is timing. Hot foil adds real prestige to a premium drinks pack, and it is also where technical missteps quietly ruin a luxury concept. The tolerances that govern it are not negotiable at artwork stage, they are only negotiable at design stage. So the printer needs to be in the conversation before the design is approved, and the limits they give you need to be built into the design development rather than discovered later.

The same applies to illustration. If a pack depends on fine linework, the minimum line weight the process can hold belongs in the brief to the illustrator, before they draw, not in a list of corrections afterwards.

None of this is exotic. It is the difference between artwork a printer can run and artwork a printer has to interpret. On a premium pack, interpretation is where the money goes.