Tutorial
Can label mockup: how to prepare the artwork
A label reads left to right on screen and wraps into a loop on the can, so the two far ends end up side by side. Here is how to size it right.
3 min
Print your label around a 3D drink can that turns in the browser. The design runs 360 degrees with the seam at the back, on bare metal or a colour you pick.
A can label has no front. It runs all the way round, and the barcode, the ingredients and the small print live on the side a shelf photo never shows. A flat mockup picks one angle, and the rest of the label is left to the imagination of whoever approves it.
A 3D can mockup shows every side. In i3Dify it is a project type called Can. You upload the label artwork and it is printed around a drink can that turns in the browser. Drag to turn it, flick to spin it, scroll to look closer.
The print covers the straight wall of the can, from under the shoulder to where the base curves in, all the way round. The band is 2.2 times as long as it is tall. The two ends of the artwork meet at a seam at the back, the way a wrapped label does. The front of the can is the middle of your file.
With the height on Auto, the can takes the label's proportions instead: a taller label makes a taller can and a wider one a shorter can, within the range of real cans. On a fixed height, artwork at another ratio is scaled to cover the band and the overflow is cropped, so nothing is stretched. A wider file loses its ends at the seam. On a fixed height, a taller one loses its top and bottom.
The can body is metal. Its colour is a setting, an aluminium grey by default, and the finish is glossy or matte. Printed colour keeps a slight metallic sheen, the way ink on aluminium does. Transparent pixels in your artwork stay unprinted, so a design with gaps shows the metal through them.
That makes a logo-only can possible. An image less than 1.4 times as wide as it is tall is printed centred on the front at its own proportions, like a mark on a plain can. If Auto guesses wrong, the Print placement setting forces Wrap or Front for the whole project.
Each uploaded image is one design on the same can. A range of flavours, or a brewery's whole lineup, goes into one Can project, and the visitor steps through it with a tap, the arrow keys or the dock. A counter shows the position. With Autoplay on, the can changes design on its own every 2 to 15 seconds, and Loop keeps it going.
Breweries have their own version of this, in beer can mockup for a brewery release.
The can is shared as a link or embedded with an iframe, on a product page, in a pitch to a client, or on any shop page that takes custom HTML. It opens on a phone with nothing to install. On the free plan the viewer carries the i3Dify watermark.
It is a presentation, not a production file. i3Dify does not print labels or cans, does not check artwork against a printer's dieline, and this type has no clickable hotspots. Check the file against your printer's template before anything goes to print. Preparing the artwork for the mockup is covered in can label mockup.
Show the back of the label before it is printed, not after. Make your can mockup.
Upload a PDF or a few images, pick a project type and share the link. The free plan is enough to try it.
Create Can