Early in my career, just out of college, I worked as a personal assistant to the artist Miriam Schapiro in East Hampton, NY. Miriam was a true pioneer, but what stayed with me most wasn’t just her artwork. It was the way she lived with it.

Her home, her studio, the way materials were stored or reused; nothing felt random. Everything had a reason for being there. Even small choices carried weight.

That way of thinking quietly shaped how I move through my work now.

More than twenty-five years later, as the owner and operations manager of OCS Art Services, a Brooklyn-based fine art logistics and crating company, I see that same mindset show up in places most people don’t think twice about. One of them is pressure sensitive labels.

In fine art logistics, labels are often treated as background noise. Arrows. Warnings. Tracking stickers slapped on at the last minute. But in reality, pressure-sensitive labeling sits right at the center of how objects move safely through the world.

A label doesn’t just identify what’s inside a crate. It tells the next person, sometimes a stranger, sometimes someone working quickly in less-than-ideal conditions, how to approach it. It signals care. Or the lack of it.

Our packing process always starts from the inside out. The artwork dictates everything, including the materials, structure, cushioning, and clearances. That part is non-negotiable. But once the crate is closed, pressure-sensitive labels become the only voice the artwork has as it moves from hand to hand.

That’s where clarity becomes critical.

We rely on pressure sensitive labels because they hold up in real conditions. Warehouses aren’t pristine. Trucks vibrate. Climate shifts. Labels need to stay put on plywood, cardboard, and composite surfaces without peeling, bubbling, or fading halfway through a journey.

The information itself is familiar. They’re the standard orientation arrows, and instructions like “fragile,” “do not stack,” “glass,” and “handle with care.” Then there’s the less visible but equally important layer that includes dimensions, weights, crate numbers, barcodes, shipment references. When those details are clear and placed intentionally, people don’t have to guess. After all, guessing is where mistakes happen.

For particularly sensitive works, we’ll add pressure sensitive impact and tilt indicators like ShockWatch and Tip-N-Tell. They do record mishandling, but more importantly, they change behavior. People slow down when they know someone is paying attention.

That said, good labeling isn’t just about adding more.

We’re careful about placement and restraint. Labels need to be straight. They need to be readable. And they need space. Too many labels competing for attention can be just as confusing as too few. Visual noise creates hesitation, and hesitation leads to poor decisions.

In practice, pressure sensitive labeling becomes a form of quiet organization. It helps create order on the outside of a crate that may otherwise be made of very ordinary materials like plywood, cardboard, tape.

Those materials aren’t precious. What’s inside often is.

Before a crate is ever opened, its labels already tell a story. You can usually tell whether the packing was rushed or considered. Whether someone thought through the journey, and not just the destination.

At OCS Art Services, we don’t treat labeling as an afterthought. It’s part of the work. Like the crating itself, it requires intention, consistency, and respect for everyone who will interact with that object along the way.

When pressure sensitive labeling is done well, it doesn’t call attention to itself. It simply works.

And in an industry built on trust, that quiet reliability matters more than people realize.