Completely Lost on a Label

i've been looking through the label section and there are some fantastic designs and a ton of good suggestions so I was hoping someone could even get me off on the right foot.

I use "Cape Brewing" (it's even my log-ing) because I have a bar in my house called.... drum roll... The Cape. The short-story is my buddies and I used to have a tiny little bar set up in our little apartment that was basically a frat house once we got out of college. Since we're from Boston, we called the bar, "The Cape" so we could tell our snotty co-workers, when they asked what we were doing for the weekend, that we were "probably just heading to The Cape". The name stuck, it was my bar equip and even though I've upgraded a few times, I always like the name and I kept it.

The problem is... the bar kind of has a logo... Here is it carved into my tap-box

Tap Box 1 - My Photo Gallery

i'm Irish... in Boston... it's an Irish Pub... hence the knot. I think I want to keep the "logo" but I'm not sure how to incorporate that into a label design.

I almost never bottle but i have a doppel and a tripel that I really think I should bottle instead of keg and I wouldn't mind coming up with some label template that I could use going forward...

I'm just stumped on how to even start with an idea and how to lay it out.

Just looking for some brain dumps if anyone's willing to toss out an idea or two.

I think that would make a pretty cool neck label. If you did that then you wouldnt be restricted by it for the regular label.

That's a good idea (see... that's why I wanted to start this thread)

But then... the thing I'm curious about is whether or not you should carry that font and possibly some sort of knot down to the bottom?

I think it would look weird to have one "style" at the top and than have the bottom be completely different.

Hmmm... maybe have a very simple knotted border around the bottom label?

What's the name of the beer going to be?

Laurel said:

What's the name of the beer going to be?

Click to expand...

Ehhh... (shrugging shoulders)

I'm really just looking for a general template that I can then customize a small amount depending on the beer Maybe just change the name and a background pic). I have a dobbelbock that I'm going to bottle this weekend and a tripel that'll be bottled in a couple of weeks.

They'll both probably sit and age for a good long time so I have plenty of time to come up with something... but like I was saying, I was kind of struggling on how to incorporate the "logo" into ANY design... never mind a specific name.

I like the idea of just using it as a neck-label and then maybe a very simple knotted border to tie the bottom label to the neck label and then I could really put just about anything in the bottom label.

Another option, what if you made a square/rectangular label with a border but one corner had a circle extruding out from it. The circle would be your Knot then it could extend right off the knot into the rope border. Uber basic diagram below.

That might work too...

What does everyone use to make the labels in terms of software. I saw Photoshop something on one of the threads, looked it up and saw that it's something like $650!!

Probably going to hold off on the $650 Photoshop purchase.

I've seen people use this in the past:
Official Seal Generator

I like the back story behind the name.

Cape Brewing said:

That might work too...

What does everyone use to make the labels in terms of software. I saw Photoshop something on one of the threads, looked it up and saw that it's something like $650!!

Probably going to hold off on the $650 Photoshop purchase.

Click to expand...

I acquired photoshop in a mode of questionable legality. It was free though.

I just made you a lable template based off of my own template design. I use GIMP2, so if you use it (it's free BTW) you can just change the name and stats.

Only problem is I'm not so proficient at using message boards and can't figure out how to post the lable I've made. Can anyone help me with that?

lookup Gimp.

It is the bastard child from when Photoshop went slumming and knocked up MSPaint in the ghetto.

Its free, and has many of the more useful features of Photoshop, without much of the other stuff that you will never need unless you are a professional graphic designer

I hope this post works.

It took all of 5 minutes to approximate your logo, insert it on the lable and play with the colors.

COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


WOW! That's awesome!

Thanks!

Calico Jack said:

I've seen people use this in the past:
Official Seal Generator

I like the back story behind the name.

Click to expand...

Cool, thanks! And thanks... yeah, we used to do it all the time. "Yeeeah... we're probably just going to relax at The Cape... maybe have some folks down".. (as if we had some summer house on Cape Cod)... in the mean time we were sitting on a little sun porch in Quincy Mass watching Sox games on a 12 inch TV, pouring BMC off the kegerator I had built.

BerserkerBrew said:

lookup Gimp.

It is the bastard child from when Photoshop went slumming and knocked up MSPaint in the ghetto.

Its free, and has many of the more useful features of Photoshop, without much of the other stuff that you will never need unless you are a professional graphic designer

Click to expand...

Cool... I def will!

Thrice's label is nice. But I CANNOT read "cape". It needs to read the other way (left to right) like normal.

Also there's a fairly easy way to duplicate your current logo. Take a photo with more contrast (less flash probably). Then you can put the photo as a background in your drawing program and "trace" the label. (mostly the knot I assume, just input the text). It's actually pretty easy.

Also if you want a vector graphics drawing program (ala Illustrator) try "Inkscape". It's also free, and you can use all the online Adobe tutorials to learn the techniques you'll need. Like tracing.