Templates
Freezer label template
You find a sample by finding its box. A box lid has room for what a vial never will, and it is read at eye level rather than at the bottom of a rack.
Label the box, index the vial
Retrieval in a −80 °C freezer is a race against frost and against the temperature of everything else in the drawer. Reading nine-point type on a vial while holding a rack is the slowest possible way to find something, and it is the reason drawers get left open.
The efficient pattern is a box lid that carries the contents in summary — project, owner, date range, and a position map — with vials carrying only an identifier. The box tells you where to look; the vial confirms you have the right one.
What belongs on a box lid
- Contents in one phrase
- “Cell bank — HEK293T” beats “Box 14”. The number identifies it; the phrase is what stops you opening it.
- Owner
- Freezers outlive projects. The name on the box is often the only route back to what is inside it.
- Date or date range
- The most reliable basis on which anything is ever discarded.
- Location
- Rack and drawer written on the box helps a box get put back where it came from, which is the actual failure mode.
The position map is the part people skip
A 9 × 9 box holds eighty-one vials, and finding one of them by reading vials is the slowest operation in the freezer. A grid printed on the lid — even an empty one, filled in by hand — turns that into a single glance at a coordinate.
The map does not have to be complete to be useful. Marking only the occupied rows, or only where each project's block starts and ends, removes most of the searching. What makes a map useless is letting it go stale, so keep it coarse enough that it stays true.
Rack and shelf labels, which are a different problem
- They are read at distance
- A rack label is read from across the room with the door open. Type that is comfortable on a vial is invisible here — go two or three times larger and use fewer words.
- They must survive being pulled
- Racks are grabbed by whatever protrudes. Put the label on a face, not on an edge, and keep it away from the handle.
- They outlive their contents
- A rack labelled with a project name is wrong within two years. Label racks by number and keep the contents in the inventory, where they can be changed.
Common questions
- What size label fits a freezer box lid?
- A standard 2 inch cardboard or polycarbonate box lid is about 133 mm square. A 63.5 × 25.4 mm label leaves room for a position map alongside it; a full-lid label makes the map part of the print.
- Do I need labels on both the box and the vials?
- Yes, but with different content. The box carries the description; the vial carries only an identifier. Duplicating the description on every vial costs space you do not have and adds nothing to retrieval.
Open it in the editor
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Last reviewed 2026-08-24.