Almost every artwork problem we see starts the same way: a logo approved on a white screen, printed on brown paper, and unrecognisable in the shop. Kraft is not a neutral surface, and designing for it is a genuinely different exercise.

Brown paper is a colour filter

Natural kraft is a mid-tone warm brown, and every ink printed on it sits over that brown rather than over white. Light colours vanish, cool colours turn muddy, and anything with low contrast against mid-brown simply stops reading at a distance.

Whites do not print at all in standard flexo — there is no white ink in the process. A logo with white elements will show as bare brown paper wherever the white was.

What works on natural kraft

Dark single colours: black, deep navy, forest green, burgundy, dark brown. One colour, confidently used, almost always looks better than a full-colour attempt.

Bold shapes and generous type. Fine hairlines and small text lose definition as the ink spreads slightly into the uncoated fibre. Design a size up from what you would use on coated stock.

What to do about white in your logo

Three options. Redraw the mark as a single-colour version for kraft — which we do free, and which is usually the best-looking answer. Print on white kraft instead, where the reproduction is far closer to screen. Or print a solid ink block and reverse the mark out of it, which works but uses a lot of ink and can look heavy.

What does not work is hoping the brown reads as white. It does not.

Ink coverage and cost

Large solid areas on uncoated kraft need a lot of ink and can show mottling where the fibre absorbs unevenly. That is a characteristic of the material rather than a fault, and heavy coverage usually looks better deliberately distressed than fighting for perfect flatness.

If you want full flat coverage and photographic detail, that is a laminated litho tote, not a kraft bag. Choosing the right substrate is cheaper than fighting the wrong one.

Always proof on the actual stock

A screen proof tells you nothing about how a colour sits on brown paper. Ask for the mockup rendered on the real substrate, and for a physical sample before a large run if the colour is critical to the brand.

We render the mockup on the actual stock as standard, and it is the step where most customers change their mind about colour — almost always toward something simpler and darker.

What to send us

Vector artwork if you have it, and your PMS references. If the logo is white or light, say so and we will send back a single-colour kraft version free alongside the mockup so you can compare them properly.