Creating Label Art

Hawaii Food Products, https://www.hawaiifoodproducts.com/ , has been operating since 1955 and is a long-time kama'aina (a word describing Hawaii residents regardless of their racial background, as opposed to "kanaka" which means a person of Native Hawaiian ancestry) company with roots in the local farming community.  This company delivers the favorite Hawaiian food products in a ready-to-eat format under the Ono Ono brand. From Lau Lau and Kalua Pork to Lechon, Char Siu, and Lomi Salmon, Hawaii Food Products has it all.

Hawaii Food Products Logo

In 2019, Hawaii Food Products became affiliated with KOHA Foods. Their goals is to perpetuate quality, customer service, and responsible growth by employing local people who manufacture local foods grown at our farm and various local farmers. 

Brian Watanabe of Hawaii Food Products contacted us as they wanted to begin producing their own labels.  According to Brian, “To get the label costs down, we had to purchase 100,000 labels for each product.  Once we had the labels, we couldn’t make the changes required in our production process.  We needed flexibility and the ability to make changes on the fly.”

Continuing, Brian says, “For example, if we use Hunts Tomato sauce in a product and are forced to move to Del Monte Tomato sauce, we may need to change the ingredients on our label.  If we don’t, the FDA could easily tag our products.  On-Demand printing of our labels make these type of ingredient changes easy to do.”

Based on our discussions, Hawaii Food Products purchased a C6000A printer and a variety of label sizes.  The C6000A offers high print quality and is affordable, reliable and durable.  I’ve written extensively on this new printer:

First Post: Introduction to the C6000 Series

Fourth Post: Out of Box Experience

Seventh Post: Printing Circles

Eighth Post: No Streaking

Here is our current price:

And the Spare in the Air (SITA) Warranty:

SITA is great. If the printer needs repair, Epson ships a replacement overnight.  We recommend SITA when label printing becomes a critical path to production.

With the purchase of the C6000, the next step was artwork.  According to Brian, “we can’t do everything ourselves.  Therefore, we need partners to help create the artwork; including redoing the logo’s.  With their expertise in labelling, we asked Color Label Solutions for assistance with artwork creation.”

With this request, our graphic artist Tony Molina stepped up and started working with Hawaii Food Products.  According to Tony, “initially, my goal was to build continuity into the label designs; with the use of colors and logos.  With new label projects, we need all of the original label elements to complete the project.  Many customers, however, don’t have the original artwork; therefore, we have to recreate them.  In this situation, I needed to recreate the logos (palm trees, etc.) from scratch which was the most difficult aspect of the project.

 

Hawaii Food Products Icon

Continuing, Tony says, “Once I had the logos, I worked on the other static aspects of the label; such as the US Inspected circle.  Completing the first label takes the longest as all of these items are required.  After the first, the follow-on labels take much less time.”

Hawaii Food Products Label Art

In this project, Tony was asked to recreate the company mascot as well.  From the original hand drawing:

Hawaii Food Products Mascot Draft

Tony created this mascot option:

Hawaii Food Products Mascot

and placed it on a label for Hawaii Foods:

Hawaii Food Products Art

Once the project was completed, Tony sent all of the original files to Hawaii Foods; a practice many or most graphic artists don’t follow.  We want to continue to earn our customer’s business; and not force companies to purchase from us by withholding original art.

Brian says “Tony did a good job on the labels; and just in time for a new shipment of Pasteles!  No way could I have done this artwork creation myself.  I’m unloading trucks, arranging our warehouse, creating new products; I don’t have the luxury for this type of work.  We need partners like Tony; and the price was worth the time I saved.”

As I have “ZERO” skills in the area of label design, I appreciate Tony’s capabilities.  If you need assistance with your label artwork, please contact us.  We can help with not only label production; but label creation as well.

Guy Mikel

855-962-7670

info@colorlabelsolutions.com