Dry Cleaner Garment Tags

Paper tags that dry cleaners attach to garments with safety pins are a functional design artifact unchanged for decades. On a tag the size of a postage stamp, the information architecture tells you everything the system needs to work. Typically a tag shows a customer number, the date received, a garment type code, and special instructions abbreviated to 2 or 3 letters (SP for spot clean, PR for press only). The same tag number appears on the receipt so the garment can be matched to the customer at pickup. Perforated for tearing, the tag uses a safety pin rather than staples or clips because it doesn't damage fabric. Some cleaners use color-coded tags to indicate service type or urgency, with a different color each day preventing yesterday's blue tags from being confused with today's. Analog, redundant, and reliable, this system handles the core problem of sorting hundreds of garments from dozens of customers through a cleaning process and back to the right owner without any electronic tracking.