“We were changing flavors every two weeks, but our packaging couldn’t keep up,” says Mei Lin, founder of Loka Tea in Kuala Lumpur. “We needed flexible print and a brand system that felt premium without locking us into huge minimums.” That’s when the team partnered with gotprint for a pilot run of labels, folding-carton sleeves, and—importantly—brand collateral for a growing network of café partners.
I joined as the packaging designer with a simple brief: build a look that carries the brand’s bright fruit profiles and translate that to short-run production without color drift. The answer leaned on Digital Printing, UV-LED Ink, and a few carefully chosen finishes. The road wasn’t perfectly smooth; monsoon humidity introduced curl on early labelstock tests, and a soft-touch coating slowed gluing on one SKU. But the direction felt right.
Here’s where it gets interesting: the team needed packaging, shelf presence, and business cards for distributor meetings, all on the same timeline. We treated these as a single design system, so color targets, substrate choices, and finishing decisions were consistent from sleeve to card.
Company Overview and History
Loka Tea started as a pop-up in 2021, selling cold-brewed fruit teas at weekend markets around Kuala Lumpur before expanding into mini cafés across Malaysia and Singapore. Their product line includes four core SKUs and frequent seasonal flavors—textbook Short-Run and On-Demand needs. The brand’s look is bright, with juicy gradients and a playful logomark that asks for crisp type and faithful color across labelstock and paperboard sleeves.
Early on, they ordered a small batch of cards through a vistaprint business card campaign to validate the visual direction. That helped confirm type sizes and spacing, but once retailers requested cartons and multipacks, we had to move into a packaging-grade workflow: dielines, color targets, and production files that matched press behavior rather than screen mockups.
We settled on two core substrates: a semi-gloss labelstock for bottles and a 16-18 pt FSC-certified folding carton for sleeves. The choice balanced print fidelity (for fruit gradients) and handling durability for chilled distribution. It also created a foundation to scale SKUs without rethinking materials each time.
Quality and Consistency Issues
The first trials showed predictable pain points: gradients banded on certain angles, ΔE hovered around 4–6 between labelstock and carton sleeves, and FPY sat near 82–84%. Humidity in the production area caused slight curl in the label edges, which showed up as micro-misregistration during application. Waste sat between 7–9%, mostly from color and registration outliers.
We traced the color gap to two factors: coating absorption differences on the carton’s top layer and the labelstock’s gloss level. On-press fixes helped, but the underlying issue was a mismatch in the print curves for each substrate. I built two tuned profiles and revised the gradient vector art to avoid tonal cliffs. It’s mundane work, yet it’s the difference between eye-watering reds and mud.
But there’s a catch: even with proper profiles, the tactile finishing we wanted—Spot UV on the fruit icon—introduced a slight edge shift if not registered tightly. The press team tightened setup, we adjusted stroke weights around the icon by 0.1–0.2 mm, and the problem faded. It’s never “perfect.” It’s controlled, and predictable, which is what a growing brand needs.
Solution Design and Configuration
We standardized on Digital Printing with UV-LED Ink for agility. For finishes, we used Spot UV on the fruit mark, soft-touch lamination only on limited sleeves (not everyday SKUs), and varnishing on labels for scuff resistance. File prep followed ISO 12647 color control targets, with press checks anchored to a defined gamut for both substrates. We set ΔE tolerances to 2–3 for primaries and 3–4 for secondaries—ambitious for mixed substrates, but realistic with tuned curves.
To keep costs sane during testing, the team booked a pilot batch using a coupon code for gotprint on a 500-card run and a short carton trial. That let us validate texture, Spot UV registration, and uncoated vs coated stock before any launch. During a seasonal promo, unit cost per SKU came down by roughly 12–15% thanks to gotprint discounts, which made it easier to test two dielines in parallel.
One operational footnote: finance wanted rewards on spend, so the team debated which business credit card best met cashflow and reporting needs for rotating SKUs. They settled on a corporate card with category cashback for online services, which covered press time, finishing, and sample shipments without complicating the GL.
Q: what to put on a business card for small business? A: Keep it clean: logomark, brand color block, name, role, a short tagline, and a QR (ISO/IEC 18004) to a mobile-friendly landing page with current SKUs and retailer info. We used the same color targets as the sleeves so cards echoed packaging on the shelf.
Quantitative Results and Metrics
Fast forward 90 days. Waste rate on cartons settled around 3–4%. ΔE on primaries sits at 2–3 across labelstock and cartons. FPY climbed into the 90–92% range once profiles, registration, and humidity controls took hold. Throughput moved up by about 18–22% on common SKUs due to fewer reprints and quicker changeovers, which trimmed setups by around 5–7 minutes per SKU.
On the business side, pilot investments paid back in roughly 8–10 months, driven by tighter color acceptance and fewer re-runs. Seasonal SKUs remain Short-Run and On-Demand, which would be expensive on Offset Printing at small volumes; Digital Printing wins here. Once quantities push into long-run territory, Offset may be a better fit per unit—this is a conscious trade-off the team tracks.
Two imperfections worth noting: soft-touch lamination added a day to gluing readiness on one sleeve, so we limited that finish to gift packs. And heavy Spot UV coverage can telegraph minor registration jitter on older applicators; we capped coverage to icon accents. Still, the brand speaks clearly on shelf and at meetings—and the new cards reinforce it. In the next cycle, we’ll test a metalized film accent for a premium line, again through gotprint pilots before broader rollout.
