Two floors decide it: the law in the market you sell into, and the press your printer runs. The higher one wins, and it is not always the legal one.
Two floors, and the higher one wins. The law sets one: in the UK, mandatory information has a legal minimum x-height of 1,2 mm, taken from the published labelling rules. Your printer sets the other: on an offset carton, reverse type has a production minimum of 6,85 point against 4,875 point for positive type. A line can clear the law and still fail on press.
The legal floor, market by market
This one is fixed before anybody draws anything, and it changes with the market, not with the design. A legal floor is the smallest size a regulator allows for a piece of mandatory text; a production floor, covered below, is the smallest size a press or a finish will hold reliably. The x-height is the height of a lowercase x in the typeface you are using, and it is the measure the UK rule is written in, not the point size.
In the UK, mandatory information carries a minimum x-height of 1,2 mm, and it cannot be hidden, obscured or cut by anything else on the pack. Article 13 of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, headed “Presentation of mandatory particulars”, puts it in one line: the particulars “shall be printed on the package or on the label in such a way as to ensure clear legibility, in characters using a font size where the x-height, as defined in Annex IV, is equal to or greater than 1,2 mm.” In the US, a Supplement Facts panel sets its own floors: body text at 8 point, with column headings and footnotes no smaller than 6 point. On small US packages the floor drops to 4,5 point and capitals become permitted, which is a concession you have to ask for, never assume.
Production floors, and why they usually bite first
Your printer has a second set of minimums, and they are not in any regulation.
Positive type is ink printed on the paper; reverse type is type knocked out of a solid colour, so the letters are the unprinted paper showing through. On an offset carton, positive type holds down to 4,875 point. The same type reversed out of a solid needs 6,85 point. So a decision that looks purely visual, white text on a dark panel, costs you almost two points of headroom on every line it touches.
Where each floor comes from
| What you are setting | Floor | Which floor is it |
|---|---|---|
| Mandatory information, UK | 1,2 mm x-height | Legal |
| Supplement Facts body text, US | 8 point | Legal |
| Supplement Facts column heads and footnotes, US | 6 point | Legal |
| Small US packages | 4,5 point, capitals permitted | Legal |
| Positive type, offset carton | 4,875 point | Production |
| Reverse type, offset carton | 6,85 point | Production |
| Foil stamped type | 8 point | Production |
| Embossed rule thickness | 2 point, bevel 30 to 50 degrees | Production |
| Spot UV line | 0,5 point, and 0,5 mm between two UV areas | Production |
Read the column on the right before you argue with anyone. A legal floor is a compliance question; a production floor is a rejection at proofing stage.
Each finish raises its own floor
Every finish you add raises the floor for the elements it touches, and founders usually meet this list after the artwork is approved.
Foil stamping sets a minimum type size of 8 point, which makes it a design decision rather than a finishing detail: a foil logotype works, a foil ingredient line does not. Embossing needs a rule thickness of at least 2 point and a bevel between 30 and 50 degrees, which is why fine linework does not emboss. Spot UV needs a minimum line of 0,5 point and at least 0,5 mm between two UV areas, so a pattern that looks delicate on screen fills in on press.
Point size is not the measure
Here is the part that changes how you brief a designer. Critical size is defined by visual angle, not by point size: the angle a letter occupies in the reader’s eye, which depends on the distance as much as on the type. Optical size is the axis in a modern typeface that redraws the letterforms for the size they will be set at; it sits on the physical point scale, with designs evaluated at a 35 to 40 cm reading distance.
What that means for you is simple. A number chosen on a screen at arm’s length is not a number chosen for a jar held at 35 cm, or for a shelf read from a metre away. Ask which distance a size was chosen for, because the same 7 point can be comfortable on a carton face and unreadable on a curved bottle.
Order of work, and why it is this way round
Three steps, in this order.
- Reserve the mandatory block first, at the strictest floor among the markets you sell into.
- Place the elements that carry a finish, since the finish sets their minimum.
- Let the brand take what is left, and check every reversed line against the reverse-type floor before it goes to proof.
Reversing that sequence produces the pack everybody recognises: a beautiful front, a legal block squeezed to its floor, and a reverse-type ingredient list that comes back from the printer marked for a redraw.
What we have not measured
The production floors above are for offset carton. We do not hold measured minimums for flexo, digital or gravure, and they are not the same. Ask your printer for the minimums on the process your pack will actually run on, and ask for them in writing before artwork rather than at proofing. MarkaWorks asks for the same list at the start of a packaging project.
MarkaWorks puts those numbers in the brief at the start, because a floor discovered at proofing is a redraw and a floor known at the start is a constraint like any other.
The floors in a MarkaWorks brief
The work described here is design work: MarkaWorks draws the pack and asks your printer for the production minimums on the actual process before artwork starts, and puts them in the brief beside the legal floors for each market you sell into. The mandatory block is reserved first and every reversed line is checked against the reverse-type floor before proof; that sequence is part of our packaging and product design work.
