How to Design a Candle Label Template

Final product image — What You'll Be Creating

Give your candle business a design face-lift and learn how to make candle labels in this Adobe InDesign tutorial. You will not only learn how to make a floral candle label design but also a simple, minimalist candle label as well. Follow along as I teach you how to set up your document and apply the different design elements.

What You'll Learn in this Candle Label Templates Tutorial

How to make floral candle labels
How to make a minimalist candle label design

Tutorial Assets

1. How to Make Floral Candle Labels

Step 1

Let's learn how to create labels for candles, starting with our first design. Open InDesign and create a new document. Go to File > New > Document. Change the Width to 4 in and Height to 6 in. Adjust the Margins to 0.25 in and Bleed to 0.125 in on each side.

Step 2

Open the Swatches panel and create three new swatches by selecting the hamburger bar menu in the top-right corner of the panel and then selecting New Color Swatch. Use these values for the colors:

Pink: C0 M23 Y0 K0
Purple: C41 M76 Y0 K70
Green: C75 M26 Y100 K40

Make sure you click Add after you create each new swatch.

Step 3

Select the Rectangle Tool (M) and cover the entire background. Change the Fill to the Pink Swatch.

Step 4

Open the Purple Watercolor FlowersJPG file in Adobe Photoshop. Go to Image > Mode > CMYK Color to change the file to CMYK. Save the file as a TIFF by going to File > Save As. From the Format dropdown, change it to TIFF.

Step 5

Jump back over to InDesign, select the Rectangle Frame Tool (F), and cover the entire background. With the frame selected, go to File > Place or Command-D and select the Watercolor Flowers TIFF file. Select the image inside the frame and decrease the Scale to 26% in the top toolbar.

Step 6

Select the image frame and open the Effects panel by going to Object > Effects > Transparency. Change the Mode to Hard Light.

Step 7

Grab the Rectangle Tool (M) and create a 3.73 W x 2.83 H vertical rectangle.

Step 8

Change the Fill to Paper and the Stroke to the Pink swatch. Change the Stroke Weight to 2 pt and the Type to Wavy. Decrease the Opacity to 80%.

Step 9

Open the Tropical Flower Watercolor PNG files (11, 06, 05, and 04) in Photoshop, convert them to CMYK, and save them as TIFFs. Place them on the top and bottom of your candle label template.

Step 10

Using the font Normaliq and Classy Minimalist, type the name of your candle business. For this example, I am using Serenity + Waves. Change the Swatch color to Purple.

Step 11

Create a monogram at the top of your custom candle labels using the font Classy Minimalist. Use the Purple swatch for the font color and outline. Group all these elements together by going to Object > Group. Change the Opacity of this group to 14%.

Step 12

On the lower part of the candle label, make three lines using the Pen Tool (P). Change the Stroke Weight to 0.5 pt and the Color to Pink.

Step 13

Type additional information about your candle in these areas. Include the name of the candle, burn time, scent profile, and the weight of the candle. Use the font Normaliq Bold, Regular and Extra Light.

Step 14

Use the Ellipse Tool (L) and create a circle in the lower left corner. Use similar settings to the rectangle shape:

Size: 0.7985 in
Fill: Paper swatch
Stroke Size: 2 pt
Stroke Type: Wavy
Opacity: 100%

Step 15

Open the vector hearts and copy (Command-C) and paste (Command-V) it from Adobe Illustrator into InDesign. Use the Green swatch for the Fill.

Step 16

Finish the badge by adding a Green1 pt stroke using the Ellipse Tool (L). Make another circle using and use the Type on a Path Tool (Shift-T) to add the words Vegan Candle Handmade. Use Normaliq, 7 pt, Regular and Green swatch for the color.