The Label Makers strike the perfect balance on quality and cost

Steampunk Spirits have enlisted The Label Makers help with their new range of gin, for one of the fastest growing variety retailers in the UK – B&M. With the store’s focus on stocking quality brands at a low price point, The Label Makers were tasked with creating a label providing maximum shelf appeal, with minimal production costs.

Charlie Gibbs, Steampunk Spirits Founder, said, “The B&M brief was clear – they wanted a quality range of gin, presented with excellent branding, at a very competitive price. The label really needed to stand out, which is why we chose an eye-catching embossed and foiled front label.

“The Label Makers’ acute attention to detail, coupled with their sound recommendations, produced the perfect result. Their guidance, such as a single colour foil to reduce production costs, ensured we kept our price point low. The level of detail on the label design kept the high quality visual we required. We look forward to working with them on our next project.”

The Gateshead based spirits company has enjoyed considerable market growth in the five years since its inception, with exports now going to Japan, Australia, Denmark, Guernsey, Bosnia and Slovenia. B&M commissioned the Steampunk Explorer Gin range in three flavours – blood orange, rhubarb and bone dry, in a bid to tempt consumers with intriguing flavours, which is where the ‘Explorer’ name comes in.

The Label Makers’ managing director, David Webster, comments on the complexities of the project: “Our client needed to maintain cost efficiency with the label production but still needed to reflect the superiority of an extremely high-quality label. This presented us with a challenging balance to strike.

“We were required to produce a label with finely detailed imagery and a high “rooftop emboss”, so recommending the best substrate material was critical to achieving the desired effect. By working with the die and embossing manufacturers we achieved an outstanding aesthetic.

“Each flavour variety needed its own foil colour. We carried out extensive trials to get the optimum finish, as each foil colour has different release factors, and on such an intricate design, only certain foils can produce the right result. The use of our bigfoot 50 ton foiling and embossing head from ABG International allowed us to get this fantastic result.”

The Steampunk Explorer range proved popular at its initial release and has since been rolled out across the country’s B&M branches.