It’s fairly easy to create styles of fruit crate labels in Adobe Photoshop. I’m going to show how to create a style that mimics the Nanpak brand (short for Nye and Naumes Packing Company) that used to ship out of Southern Oregon.
Here’s the original:
The keys to achieving a look similar to the original is to match the color, typography and effects as much as possible. Some of the elements, such as the background beveling and the large center N will not be copied in order that the text would be more versatile.
Color
I matched the colors by using Adobe Color CC to grab colors from the original image that I took with my phone.
Typography
For the typography, I wanted to find a font where the counter (the inside part of the P) would be squared off. Industry Ultra from Fort Foundry seemed like a good choice.
Layer Styles
In Photoshop, I typed out “NANPAK” and then set up the following layer styles:
- Bevel & Emboss: I set up an Outer Bevel using the Chisel Hard technique because I wanted to mimic the crisp bevels of the N. Using an Inner Bevel would round the bevels too much.
- Stroke: Normally, an Outer Bevel will bevel the background color, but by using a stroke that matches the fill color, I’m able to apply the Outer Bevel to cover the stroke and give a crisper bevel.
- Drop Shadow: I applied a simple Drop Shadow, extended the shadow spread to match the same size as the bevel and stroke.
In the end is a colorful typeface that can be easily edited. If you’d like the original Photoshop file, you can download it here.