Perfecting Your Tin Can Artwork: The Secrets to Stunning, Seamless Designs

Artwork Alignment

When designing for our beaded cans, it's crucial to activate the "FPO - represents can" layer to visualize where the beads will impact your design, ensuring that small text or critical elements don’t fall into these grooves.

One of the most important things to consider when creating tin can artwork is making a seamless design. To ensure your design wraps beautifully around the can without awkward breaks or mismatches at the art seam, align your patterns to the left edge and right edge of the template, precisely with the light blue trim line. The easiest way to do this is to have a solid color flood your can. However, if you do have a pattern, you'll need to make sure anything that falls over the blue line on the left or right sides matches up accordingly.

To do this, you’ll want to make sure that any art that hangs over the left edge of the blue trim line shows up on the right side of the template, meeting at the blue trim line. When looking at the example below, the gold star on the left side of the template is the same gold star that’s connected to the red star on the right side of the template. Making sure these pieces line up will create a seamless pattern in your art. To double-check that your art will be seamless, copy and paste your art directly to the left or right of the template, making sure design elements on the left and right line up perfectly.

To prevent any gaps when your design wraps around the can, it is critical that your artwork contains bleed on the right or left side. Bleed is included in our template dimensions and is used as a safety net in case there is a slight shift during the printing process. We’d rather see a bit more of your art instead of blank can. You’ll want to be careful that the art on the left and right side of your template marries at the blue line, and not the edge of the artboard, because the pink area (for the most part) will not be seen. If it did, your seamless pattern would not line up.

Technical Tips for Success:

When checking your designs for errors, zoom in (at least 100%, but no more than 200%) to catch any tiny errors or misalignments. This is especially crucial for spotting unintended strokes or alignment issues along the seam's back, which could introduce unwanted white lines.

Minimum font size should be 8pt for light text on a dark background and 6pt for a dark text on a light background. These minimum recommendations can vary, however, based on the style of the font.

Minimum stroke size should be 1pt for light colored stroke on a dark background and .5pt for dark colored stroke on a light background.

Lastly, make sure to outline any fonts, embed any linked images within your artwork, and turn off template layers before submitting your final designs.

Color Management

We’ll state the obvious: Colors are pivotal in the success of your tin can design. That’s why it’s crucial that all colors are in CMYK format, as this is the gold standard when it comes to print. Sorry, RGB and PANTONE, but you’ll have to sit this one out.

For maximum vibrancy in the final printed design, favor lighter colors and detailed patterns, rather than large areas of dark, solid colors. As you may have guessed, you’ll also want to avoid very thin lines, shapes, and text. Finally, ordering a physical proof is necessary to ensure that your design looks the way you want it. Oftentimes colors don’t translate to print as they appear on a computer screen.

A little pro tip: Use our color values 25-25-0-100 CMYK for a true, rich black color.

Metallic Effects

Who doesn’t like a bit of sparkle? To achieve stunning metallic effects, use the "Metallic Elements Here" layer to show us where you’d like the metallic effects on your can. Separate the elements you want to enhance and place onto the appropriate layer for that extra dazzle.

There’s nothing we love more than helping you make your packaging as impactful as possible. By understanding the detailed requirements of tin can artwork and preparing accordingly, you can ensure your product comes out looking like it does in your wildest dreams. Ready to start designing? Dive into our Design Lab with these tips in mind and create packaging that pops!

For more, check out our templates and artwork guides, select tin can for your product type, and find the size you are working with in the drop down for all the official details.