How would you label a box without using a sticker label?

Umm… A Sharpie? I don’t completely understand what you’re getting at.

I mean, you can print directly onto cardboard, but probably not if its already in the form of a box. You could always use a stencil and paint or you could screen print it though.

A Sharpie is the #1 solution but it is permanant.

A good in-between would be to print off or handwrite your label then staple it to the box. Tape would also work.

ok, now how would I do it in a manufacturing setting where I need several hundred cases labeled per hour…sticker labels are currently in use but are super expensive. Printing directly on the box with an inkjet system eliminates the paper label.

Have a few hundred employees play with scissors for minimum wage. Employ the unemployed!

Depending on the level of manufacturing:
– You can offset print the boxes, then assemble them (this is how cereal boxes and such are printed)
– You can do screen printing, which would work just fine for low volumes in low color counts.

This is assuming you’re doing the same label on all several hundred boxes, if you’re doing custom labels on each, you’re probably SOL.

Pay a commercial packaging printer to do it right.

A commercial packaging printer isn’t really necessary in this situation because we’re not printing retail boxes. We are printing on 10 LB interstate containers that are white, cardboard boxes. Now we use black and white sticker labels. I’m trying to come up with a way to reduce cost and having it done by someone else will increase cost. It’s not really a matter of doing it right, it’s a matter of coming up with a new and improved way of doing it. Thanks for the input though.

There’s no way to put a box through an inkjet printer, it’s 3 dimensional. The only thing I can think of is spray paint and a stencil, although it’ll be less efficient than just sticking a sticker.

well, you can’t put a box through an inkjet printer, but you can use an external print head that sprays the ink on the box as it passes down a conveyor…google foxjet you’ll see what I mean. This is alternative I have considered but I’m having issues wit resolution.

Resolution? As in, print resolution? I’d call a rep from the company.

How about printing the labels on plain paper, say 8 or 12 or more to a sheet, and cutting them so that wide clear tape will completely cover the label area? You can cut 10 sheets at a time manually with a paper cutter, many more if you use one of those guillotine-like cutters that they have at print shops.