Glossary
The Basics
SKU or “Stock Keeping Unit” – Refers to each individual type of product that you sell, both in terms of flavor and size. For example, if you have two flavors of lemonade and both come in an 8oz and 16oz container, then you have four SKUs total.
Units – This is the amount of product that you’re producing. If your copacker is producing 500 of one SKU of lemonade, then they are producing 500 units of one SKU of lemonade. This number comes in handy when ordering packaging for your product.
The Proposal
Scope – We use the term “Scope” to define what is covered within a set price. This includes the agreed upon vision of the project and how the services will play out.
Logo Mark – A symbol or icon that represents a brand visually. The most notorious example is the Nike swoosh. The logo mark can be “locked up” with the logo text for the full logo, or saved separately if the mark has enough brand recognition.
Lock Up – This refers to a fixed arrangement of a brand’s visual elements, such as the logo mark with the logo text. The two elements can be combined in a specific and consistent way (in terms of sizing, spacing, and relationship to one another), which is referred to a lock up. This term can also be applied to elements other than just the logo. For example, a brand’s full logo and product name can be saved as a lock up.
Logo Set – This refers to one variation of a logo. For example, one logo set could be horizontal (logo mark to the left or right of logo text), full color, with tagline. Another logo set might be vertical (logo mark above logo text), one-color, no tagline.
DPM or “Digital Product Mockup” – A digital rendering of your fully packaged and labeled product. With most of our projects, we include DPMs as a courtesy. These can be a replacement for simple product photography for printed and digital collateral. If it works with your budget, we do still recommend product photography for romance imagery.
The Packaging Content
Claims – Examples of product claims include “Gluten Free”, “All Natural”, “Contains 0 grams of Sugar”, etc…
Romance Copy – This is an industry term that refers to the additional, fluffy content usually provided on packaging designs. Romance copy is not required, but we recommend adding it as a way to form a connection with your consumer.
NFP or “Nutrition Facts Panel” – The Nutrition Facts Panel is required on food products for companies who make nutritional claims on their package or website, or for businesses with a specific dollar amount of sales per year. Regardless, it’s good practice to include this on your food products for transparency purposes.
SFP or “Supplement Facts Panel” – The Supplement Facts Panel is required on all products marketed as a dietary supplement. SFPs have different line item requirements than NFPs, and are custom built with the information that’s pertinent to display for that specific supplement.
Ingredient Deck – This term refers to the statement that appears adjacent to your NFP/SFP and includes all ingredients of your product in descending order by predominance of weight.
Allergen Statement – This directly follows your ingredient deck, if your product contains any allergens. Allergens include milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, and soybeans. You can also opt to include a statement like “This product was processed in a facility that also processes…” if applicable.
Nutritionals – We use this word to encompass the NFP/SFP, the ingredient deck, and the allergen statement.
URL – This is an exact web address. The URL for this specific page is https://goldsparkdesign.com/glossary. When creating QR codes, we need to know the exact URL that your QR code should link to.
FPO or “For Placement Only” – If we are working on the design of your packaging, but we don’t have the actual content for certain elements (such as the barcode), we’ll graphically put “FPO” over those elements. This helps us to remember that even though there is a barcode in the design, it’s for placement only, and the actually, correct barcode needs to be inserted before printing.
The Artwork
Dieline – This is the shape that your packaging is cut to. Once packaging is printed, whether it’s a label, box, pouch, etc…it gets cut into a shape using a diecut, which is like a cookie cutter. Before designing artwork for your product, we need to ensure that we have a proper dieline from your printer, so we know the area and dimensions of your packaging artwork.
Vector – In the graphic arts world, this term describes the file format of a particular piece of graphic art. Vector art is created out of vectors, versus pixels, which makes the artwork scalable to any size without loss of quality. Vector artwork is also easily manipulated, as the components of that artwork are usually independent from one another.
Vector artwork is usually created in Adobe Illustrator. Rastor (pixel) artwork is usually created in Adobe Photoshop. A file format for Vector artwork is .AI, .EPS, .SVG, and sometimes .PDF. A file format for Raster (pixel) artwork is .PSD, .JPG, .PNG, and sometimes .PDF.
The Website
Theme – On Shopify, the theme is the chosen design template for your Shopify site. Themes come with “sections”, which is a specific type of layout lockup, like “image over text”, or “icons with text”, or “individual product listing”. With themes, all fonts, colors, and imagery can be switched out to fit your brand, which makes it really tough to assess themes because you’re viewing them with another brand’s branding and assets. But we’re pros at this, and can help you pick the theme that’s right for your brand’s vibe.
App – On Shopify, an app is an application that can be added to your account, which enables a special functionality. The most common apps we add to our client’s stores enable subscriptions, pop-ups (usually for discount codes), or customer reviews.
Variations – This refers to the different ways a single product could be sold. For example, maybe you have an energy drink, and it is sold in either a 4-pack or 6-pack. These are two different variations of that product.
Written Policy Pages – These are the legal pages we like to include in the footer of your website, such as the Privacy Policy, Terms and Conditions, Shipping Policy, and Returns Policy.