Details. Details. Details.

Woodinville Whiskey Co. has new hang tags for their amazing barrel-aged maple syrup.

I gotta be honest, it’s a pain in the ass caring this much about little details – especially when most people (including some clients) might not always notice. Check out the nice, fibrous texture of that real, thick, kraft paper. It would have been easier to source these on white paper. It’s always easier to get white paper – for everything. Colors and images are brighter on white paper – and that’s what most people want – so that’s what printers carry in stock. When you ask for brown kraft, or something with a texture or heft you can all but hear them sigh as they realize they are going to have to dig a little deeper – not all of them, of course, I know some great printers. Even if you do have to push a little harder, the results are always worth it. These look more natural than they would have on white stock. They feel more rugged. No white edges.

And check out those nice, matte, custom-dyed strings. Jute would have had a really natural look and feel, but we needed elastic so they’d be easy to apply and not fall off during shipping and stocking. But when you specify elastic cords, you get shiny, metallic gold. 100% of the time. We had to look harder to find a natural-looking-but-still-stretchy material for the cords. And then find a place that would color match them to our specifications.

If I wasn’t watching like a hawk, these would be thin, flimsy, glossy hang tags with white edges, hanging from obnoxious gold strings. The same attention to detail went into the printing of the labels, the closure specifications and the design of the glass bottle itself. Read more about that here.