This was a very complex project and if you are interested I explain it in detail here. This project required a year to complete it and a great amount of research and thinking about how design works, not just about how nice it looks, but how to use typography, color and design to maximize the communication information in a complex situation. You will need to read this background to appreciate this project.

When I began this project, Bio-Rad had over over 400 different products packaged in many different containers and with many different labels. Gretchen Butler, the head of purchasing, had a vision that a significant financial savings and time savings could be realized if there was a design system. Bio-Rad had about 400 products in glass and plastic containers which had labels, The containers were many different sizes and the labels were many different sizes and colors. The containers went in package/boxes which were many different sizes because the containers were different sizes. The packages went in corrugated shipping cartons. There were also instruction/informational manuals.

I toured the production and packaging facilities, talked to product managers and took some samples of all of the packaging back to my office. I also made visits to select customers representing different kinds of customers. The design of the existing labels had not been systematically developed. Rather, had been randomly evolved. As the company grew things happened with different people making decisions, different kinds of packaging machinery ,different kinds of products, different kinds of information some of which was required by law,etc. and while often previous labels were used as guides, from a design perspective there was a great deal of differences between the labels. Furthermore there were a number of poor design elements.

For example, at some point someone decided to use a one color full coverage with type being reversed out of the ink. The idea was that different products could have different colors and be easier to identify. However, some of the labels were very small and all of the labels had so much required words that some of the type was small. Naturally some type was filled in by the ink and not readable. Another example of confusion was that each specific label had different categories of information and generally all of the labels contained most of the different categories of information.

For example, they all had the logo, they all the generic name, most had a Bio-Rad proprietary name, some had customer product numbers, some had internal product numbers, they had cautionary statements, the address, and so on. There was no standard design format for displaying this information and the labels varied widely in how these categories of information were related to each other in the design. Some had information that was not common, such as a radioactive symbol. I studied all of the labels, categorized the information, and created diagrams and lists. Through multiple presentations based on visual sketches we were able to define the different categories of information, determine wha was to be included, what was common and not common information, what the realtionship of the categories were to each other and the relative importance of each category to customers and Bio-Rad.

The first step was to establish a prioritized list of all the categories of information. This in itself took four meetings with not less than 7-8 people in each meeting and not always the same people.

For example, it was determined that the Bio-Rad logo was to be the most prominent thing and next was the generic name. At the same time, from my visits to their customers one of the things I had found was that they all color coded the containers. The containers were stored in refrigerators which were usuallly quite full. This made it difficult to read the words on the labels because the words were small and the refrigerator was full of different containers. The color codes were usually sticky somethings which were stuck on the top for easy recognition. To me it was clear that for customers one of the most important things in packaging was ease of finding the container in a crowded refrigator.

Here you can see a sample of the resulting label. There were 13 product groups and each product group was assigned a color designed in a visually prominent place so that the customer could easily identify the product in a crowded environment. The generic name was in the color and extra bold.

In the end there were four different size labels. For each label the type in each category was the same size and same placement. This means for the above label format in the proprietary name area—Quantaphase...— the size, font, leading and position of origin was always the same. The proprietary names of the product varied from a three character name to a 97 character name. Other types of information also varied greatly inamount. Before the final design was finished, each qualitatively different situation had to be found, defined and layed out to make sure that a standard for type placement, size and style was acceptable in final application.

The label had to accommadate all situations and still look good. The generec names —in orange color here— ranged widely in their measure and were in three more languages below. The statements below them could be none to six lines. Variable information went in the area under the rule under the logo.Note that the logo clearly stands out, that was agreed by all to be the most important thing. Some of the type was three and four point in size. The Bio-rad green was dark enough to print this small type and be readable. Therefore all other stuff was in thet green color. This established a stong visual consistancy among Bio-Rad products.

For type, I selected the Helvetica type family because of its many different fonts, and you can see that I have used a wide variety of them so that the fonts themselves work to seperate the categories of information and make the label more easily readable. It was also selected because it was a sans serif and thus maximized print quality of small sizes. There was also a 34 page style manual specifying all the details of type and layout for typesetters as the labels were set up to be typeset in place. Other problems in the design had to do with spacing. Every category had to have its own space and enough space to do the job.

For example, in the space for the proprietary name, (here it is Quantaphase Folate Radioassay), that space had to avaible for a shortest name that was three characters and the longestwhich was 97 character s. These small bottles are less than 1 1/2" high and the labels were less than 1" high. Still you can see the integrity of the design format is visually maintained. The design was carried through the boxes, as well as the instruction manuals, which were adapted to a non-bleed for budgetary reasons.

The design was carried through on the shipping container which was printed one color, the Bio-Rad green. On the bottom left is a page from the 34 page style manual I wrote and designed for the typesetters. The manual covered every aspect of typesetting, including what to do for oversetting. At this time photo typesetting was in its prime and the whole label, carton art and instruction manual art could be set on a good machine such as a Berthold. The corrugated boxes had to be pasted up in mechanical artboard style.