What is the most common typography failure? Small text that looked fine on screen and fills in or breaks up in print. Letterforms have a physical limit: below a certain size, ink spread closes the counters inside letters and joins strokes together, particularly on absorbent or textured board.
What size is safe? There is no universal figure because board, ink and press all matter, but very small type becomes unreliable sooner than most designers expect. Reversed-out text, meaning light type cut out of a dark field, fails earlier than positive type, and thin weights fail before regular ones.
Why do fonts need outlining? Live text depends on the receiving machine having that font installed. Converting text to outlines or curves removes the dependency and prevents silent substitution at the printer. Keep an editable copy separately, because outlined text cannot be corrected later without retyping it.
What about font licensing? A desktop license permits design work, while commercial printing and brand use can require a different license tier. Printers are not responsible for the license on a typeface you supply, so it is worth checking the terms on anything bought from a small foundry.
How does the surface change legibility? Soft-touch, textured and metallic stocks scatter light and reduce contrast at small sizes, and light ink on kraft behaves very differently from dark ink on white board. Legibility has to be judged on a printed proof made on the actual material, not on a rendered mockup.
How should text be structured? Shoppers read in a fairly predictable order: brand first, product variant second, detail after. Regulatory and ingredient text can be smaller, provided it stays readable at arm’s length. Hierarchy decisions belong with the wider identity work described in the brand packaging design guide.
How do you check before production? Print the artwork at actual size on the intended stock and read it at the distance a shopper would stand. That single check catches more problems than any on-screen review. File preparation basics are covered in the design files guide, and text sitting near codes needs the clearances in the barcode and QR guide.
Chengtop prints and converts cajas plegables, cosmetic packaging and cajas de regalo rígidas at our Wuhan plant. Send your artwork through the quote request page and we will come back with a quote.
