Old-timeish label

Hey folks.

Finally decided to get around to making labels. I wasn't looking for anything fancy, but moreso something that feels a little more old-world. The below is what I came up with.

The artwork is from a lithograph done at the end of the 18th century, taken from a portfolio of old growth trees and shrubbery from all over england. I liked the artwork (most of the portfolio are old growth trees, which I vary amongst depending on the beer in the bottles, but I love this picture the best), it was more or less open domain, which is even more kickass, and it lent to a very clean, simple, aged style presentation.

The "brewery name" I picked, Chipping-Under-Oakwood, came from the Southern California Renaissance Pleasure Fair. For what I believe was around 45 years, the fair recreated life in a small English country town during the late 1500s. The word "Chipping" comes from the same latin root as "cheap", and means "marketplace". Therefore, the name of the town basically means "the market under the oak trees". While only some of my labels use oak tree lithographs, the sleepy, country atmosphere of this picture captures the concept perfectly.

I print them on my laser printer, in B&W (hence no color) using parchment to give the paper more texture. Usually if I'm in a rush or don't care especially I use a paper cropper to cut them out and they look fine. If I'm going for presentation, I'll actually carefully measure and tear the labels out by hand using a straightedge to give it a more hand-crafted feel. The eventual intent is to have the swing-cap bottles combined with an older-feeling label to evoke some nostalgia while drinking.

The labels themselves are made up in Microsoft Publisher, saved as a template, and can be modified in about 3 minutes to reflect whatever latest beer I've bottled.

And now, without further ado, I present my first attempt at labeling (unscaled, so that you can make out some detail, and forgive the clipping of the P's and G's in the text, this has since been corrected):

I love the picture and the simplicity. I do think the font and text at the bottom kinda throw the effect though. I might put "ABV:____ Brewed:_____ Bottled:_____" in the same font as the other words and then 5.5% and the dates in a font that looks like handwriting. No need to put the ABV to the hundredths.

On a 22oz bottle the info text is so bloody small that even I have to look for a moment, which is why I avoided any textual fonts. It's farking large here, but my label is maybe 1/4 the size. However, I might reformat, and take your suggestions, making the text a little larger. It would add nicely to the overall aesthetic. The ABV was just cut & pasted out of beersmith, but you're right, I could just round.

I'll try to dig up the origin of the pictures if anyone else wants them. If you search for lithographs in general you can find some amazing art to use for bottle labels, and often they're all public domain since lithos went out of style back in the early 20th century.

The next item on my beer label to-do list? Back labels. But I'm being evil. I bottle in 22oz-1 liter bottles mainly, and so on the backs of my bottles I intend to have traditional and pseudo-traditional drinking songs about beer. The evil part? Each bottle will only have one verse, so you'll either need half a dozen friends or one hell of a long drinking session to get through a song. I figure with six friends you can get singing without being too self-conscious, and if you've just drank 6 liters of beer, you're too drunk to care and will sing to celebrate anyway!

You bottled too quickly

Agree in regards to the critique of the font on the last line. As it stands definately looks a little out of place. The artwork seems a bit large in relation to the font size and the last line of text also needs to be better balanced (center and right).

I love the idea of the label template. One just needs to find the design/style that works for their brewing repertoire.

Nice work, can you send me the info on the templet? sizing and all stuff like that.

also, could yu drop a link to the artwork?

Tim

Jamo99 said:

You bottled too quickly

Agree in regards to the critique of the font on the last line. As it stands definately looks a little out of place. The artwork seems a bit large in relation to the font size and the last line of text also needs to be better balanced (center and right).

I love the idea of the label template. One just needs to find the design/style that works for their brewing repertoire.

Click to expand...

Wow... I had totally forgotten about this thread.

This was the label for the leftovers of my first batch, and thusly was rushed through. C'est la vie, no?

I've taken all these pointers into consideration and have made the required modifications.

As far as the template, it seemed that while it's the cheap way out, having half a dozen pictures is all you *really* need. I use different bottle caps, and different pictures, to make like 36 different combinations. It takes me 3 minutes to enter everything in, and about 20 minutes to cut all the labels and paste them on using milk.

MX1 said:

Nice work, can you send me the info on the templet? sizing and all stuff like that.

also, could yu drop a link to the artwork?

Tim

Click to expand...

My template for 22 ounce labels is about 2.25 inches across and 4 inches high. These will fit on 16 ounce bottles, but will dominate most of the bottle face and seem too big. I find the size is perfect for 22oz however. I'd probably reduce the size by 25% on a 16. With this template, I print 4 to a page, and have plenty of space on every side so that I can leave a boarder around each edge.

The picture itself is 3 inches tall and 2.25 inches across. This was due to the original lithograph dimensions. I scaled it down and didn't crop anything.

As far as the artwork, just do a google search on lithographs, illustrations, or drawings, plus whatever subject you're looking for, and you'll find oodles and oodles of results. Anything over 100 years old is probably public domain, and in my example the lithos are 150 years old.

Another idea that went over pleasantly was to use seal wax to put my signet on the bottle somewhere. I personally settled on the bottlecap, which while destroyed on opening, does lend a certain old-world ambiance to the presentation. I intend to do this with the mead I will bottle next year as well.