Suggestions please

[kyt]

I've been working on some labels for my kegs and bottles.
I'm going to get grogtags so I can write on them.
I did graphic design in high school and some college, I'd say I'm decent at fixing images, but I have not a single creative/artsy bone in my entire body.
I could use some constructive criticism from more right-brained individuals.

I'm pretty happy with the keg label as it is. Only a couple things worry me.
1. I have no way to check for CMYK in Gimp (that I can find). I know Photoshop used to have a feature that would check the image and select pixels that may fail to print properly.
2. I'm worried about the opacity of the background decorations, or whatever you'd call them. The layers are 60% and Mode: Overlay
I wanted them to look like they were faded/watermark-ish. When I print it off on the BW laser at work I can see them fine, but I don't know how they'll turn out in color.

For the bottle label, you can obviously see what I did. The thing that bothers me the most, is the necker. The symmetry is off and it bothers me. My wife loves it as it is, but I'm too OCD for it to not be lined up right.

Fonts were never my forte, I picked one that was installed and looked decent for the style I was shooting for. There's probably something better, but I'm not about to pay for a font unless I was actually selling my brews. If you can suggest something that would look significantly better, I would probably switch out all the right side up text, but it would have to be the OMGFTWBBQ!!1pew for me to redo all the rotated numbers. That was a huge PITA!

Other than those things, I'm torn about the white space. I don't like designs that are real busy with filler, but at the same time, I feel like it's missing just a touch of something, that I lack the talent/eye to fix.

What say ye?

 

[BrewWNC]

Its awesome the way it is. However, if I had to make changes I might consider:

Maybe moving "Solve Et Coagula" into the center circle and make it darker. Of course this is where people would focus their eyes so you would have to be ok with that.

Or moving "Dyslexic Alchemist" into the center circle and making it darker while moving "Solve Et Coagula" along the outside lines of the pyramid.

I think its fine the way is though my suggestions are really only if you want to play around with the design more (definitely not necessary).

 

[kyt]

OK thanks! I don't want anything in the center to be too dark, that's where I'm going to write the name of the brew. It's not labeled, you wouldn't have known that, sorry.
I could make "solve et coagula" smaller to fit in the circle only. Do you find it distracting at that size?

I have other text already formatted to fit in that space, but my wife said it felt too busy. I can switch that layer on and post it here shortly. It's the text of the Emerald Tablet in Latin as translated by Issac Newton.

posted via Home Brew mobile app

 

[kyt]

With the center text switched out.