assembly instructions

Who is it for? A customer who will consider your work to be shoddy if the "tape is too messy" or friend/family member will just put it together and never even think about the quality of the labeling?

Try blue painters tape, neatly affixed. Either tape on printed labels or use a Sharpie directly on the tape.

A few years back I sent my daughter back to college with a full size bed that I built for her. The design requirements were that it was tall enough that those 18 gallon totes could be stored underneath, but more importantly it had to be in small enough pieces that she fit it all in the back of her station wagon, carry the pieces into her house by herself and then assemble it.

I numbered each piece in an inconspicuous spot with a sharpie and took pictures of the bed as I assembled it. I then put the pictures in a PowerPoint document and added step-by-step text instructions.

She's moved the bed 3 times since I built it and has never had any trouble taking it apart or putting it back together because she has the "illustrated instruction manual."

not a bad idea

might be good enough

not as fancy as ikea but will be explicit enough

will include an 800 number too in case of assembly problems