In October Dutch Label Shop reached out to me and offered me a $100 voucher to try out their labels. They said they'd appreciate me blogging or posting about them on Instagram if I liked them, but I was not obligated to do so. Since I had already planned on buying them, I accepted the offer, but with less frugal guilt.
I saw the labels Jeni Baker had made and wanted something similar, a folded woven label I could stitch into the seams of bags or binding of quilts.
What I ordered: 200 sew-on center fold woven labels that measure 2.5" wide x 1" tall resulting in a 1" square label with a .25" seam allowance. My labels were white and I selected purple 2695C for my logo color, which was printed on both sides of the fold. I selected the "double white" option to preserver the white background. Here's exactly what the file I uploaded looks like. The artwork in the label is black, but I picked purple thread as I mentioned. The cost for these labels was $96 ($.48 each). For $106 I could have gotten 300 ($.35 each), but I wanted to stay within my $100 voucher.
The good: I'm 100% happy with how my labels turned out. I was concerned how my logo would turn out at such a small size since they are woven, not printed, but they look great! The edges don't fray and they feel just like any other woven label you'd find on store bought clothing. It'll probably take me a while to go through 200 labels, but when I eventually run out, I'll definitely reorder these. I hate hand sewing labels on quilts so these labels make a great alternative.
For an extra $10 you can get a photo proof, meaning they'll send you an image of an actual sample label made with your design, so that's a nice option to have. I didn't bother with it though.
The turnaround time was also reasonable. I placed my order on October 25th and my order shipped on November 2nd.
The bad (which isn't that bad): The website and ordering process can get confusing. Services like this need to find a balance of providing enough clear, concise instruction without overwhelming you. The site should be intuitive. There were multiple times during the process of ordering where I got confused, or felt unsure if I was doing things correctly.
For starters, the product categories aren't as clear as they could be, and it took me a few minutes before I was sure what I should even be choosing. For labels like mine, the category you'd want to select is "Brand Labels," which has two products: Basic Woven Labels and Woven Logo Labels. Uhh...what's the difference?
Basic Woven Labels are much more...basic. You can only pick from 3 sizes and your label will only consist of text with a limited number of font options. You can also add a clip art style symbol, but those have limited options as well. You can pick sew-in or iron-on, but that's it. If you're going to spend the time and money to get custom labels, I don't think these are worth it.
That takes us to Woven Logo Labels, the product I selected. When it comes to custom products, I've had experience with these kind of things. The company usually provides a template or image showing bleeds, safe artwork area, etc. to help you design your product. Dutch Label Shop is less helpful, which made me pretty nervous about how my labels would turn out.
The different kinds of folds are only explained via an illustration for each. No text. It would be nice to have an actual photo example and maybe a suggestion of what each type of use the labels are suited for.
The user interface for picking colors needs improvement too. You are presented with what appear to be basic color swatches (blue, brown, green, etc.) which gives the impression your options are very limited. However, if you actually click the blue swatch, a sub-menu appears with lots of different shades of blue. Okay. I was staring at the label color option for a while trying to figure out why basic white wasn't an option before I realized I had to click the black "base colors" swatch to then choose white.
Overall, the product is awesome, it's just the ordering process that I feel needs improvement. At the very least, reading this review should give some awareness of what to expect and alleviate some of that confusion. If I had been spending $100 out of my own pocket and not using a voucher, I wouldn't have felt super confident placing my order due to the confusion I had during the ordering process. Maybe I would have spent the extra $10 on the photo proof to be certain I was getting what I wanted.
If you're looking for professional looking labels, these get a thumbs up from me. Dutch Label Shop has given me the discount code "iamlunasol15" (no quotes) to share with you guys so you can get 15% off your purchase for the next 30 days. Enjoy!
