Show Us Your Label

I just nock up any label I fancy and always use black white as it's 10p sheet at my local library

 

Like Nomofett said, when you're making a beer you are creating a harmony between malt, hops, yeast, etc. Likewise, with labels, you should aim to create harmony between the colors, fonts, and artwork.

To me, the best looking labels on here are those that are simple, balanced, and convey a theme or idea that somehow ties back to who the brewer is. This could be anything from location to a childhood story that has stuck with them and helped define their style. The best labels are simple in design, but use that imagery to say something about their beer without adding paragraphs of text. I think the biggest thing to kill the aesthetics of a label is to add too much text. A picture is worth a thousand words - let them do the talking!

 

A quick label for a 1 gallon batch of Christmas ale. I know a picture is worth a thousand words, but with this one, most might not know who Krampus is. image is clearer in publisher.

 

What software/tool did you use to create these labels? They look amazing!

 

Just started brewing a few months ago but I've been messing around with a brewery concept. I have my 3rd, 4th, and 5th beers fermenting right now, and I plan to bottle them and give them as holiday gifts this year.

I drew some sketches on my iPad for the graphics of each beer, and mocked them up in Keynote on my Mac. I also built a little website, tinfoilhatbrewery.com

Thought it would be fun to come up with a cohesive theme that unifies it all, I took some inspiration from Revolution and their hero series of beers but chose a story a little closer to my heart (I work in cybersecurity). Each beer is a character, and each has a little backstory.

Hopefully the beers turn out...let me know what you think of the concept!

 

Very nice! Love the hand drawing look. I think they would look even more fantastic with a neck label with the brewery name rather than the label above the label. Just my opinion.

 

Thanks.

I use GIMP (you can get this for free) with free plug-ins for fonts and texture brushes. There are a lot of layers on each label. The same thing can be accomplished by paying more than you need to for Photoshop....

I am hopefully putting out an article soon for the front page on labels that will explain more.

 

Yea I'd like to do a neck label but I wasn't sure how to incorporate.

It's kind of tough to tell on the computer screen, but the label design is actually a white strip on the top with a skinny black bar underlining it, and then the bottom of the label is a subtle beige color. I think the subtle contrast of the colors will look really cool with the stark black line through.

I tried to carry the same idea into the six packs. I have a bunch saved up, and I'm planning to spray paint them all a light beige color first, and then paint a black bar on the bottom and stick on a white label.

This might show it better:

 

Awesome, thanks for the info. And what do you print them on/how do you get them on your bottles? Sorry for all the questions!

 

I lay 6 labels out on a GIMP template that I upload and print with Fedex Kinkos for pick up. 25 lb. laser jet paper I believe is their thinnest and works the best. I use kid's glue sticks to apply them and they literally fall with the glue off the minute you put them into an oxy bath.

 

Some of my "labels". I don't really label my bottles, persay, it's more of a hanging tag. I just punch a hole in the top of the tag and wrap it around the neck of the bottle with twine. I put the design on the front and the beer description on the back, along with my brewery name and ABV.

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The PB&J one is my favorite label.

 

The amber one is pretty sharp. I'd like to see one hung on a bottle.
Slick idea man.

 

Thanks man. I can't take 100% credit for all of the designs... Some were taken from other posts here or Google images and then slightly modified. Some I did design 100% of though. Below is a pic of them all on bottles. There are more labels shown in this pic because I have some that I took from here and didn't modify at all, so I didn't post them as "mine" in the above post.

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Thanks for the picture. That looks like it would be a pain in the ass to do an entire batch but would make one hell of a six pack to give someone as a gift. That's great.

 

The latest batch of beers finally got labels:
1. third northern brewer/vienna smash, quickly becoming our house ale, recipe originally by @deathbrewer
2. my first porter, based on @edwort bee cave robust porter
3. a chocolate vanilla stout, left-over coopers kit i got for 1 buck at the sales store, date was running out, so they couldn't sell it full price any more.

 

Love the Monty Python reference!

 

Thanks, to clarify for non-finnish, I live in Pääskylahti, translated: swallow bay.

 

Gotta love your labels Kharnynb. Did that batch I "helped with" work out?

My first ever brew, CitraSMaSH, is almost through primary fermentation, need to come up with a label for it in the next month or so... =)

EDIT: Will probably end up being very close to this draft, if not indeed this one exactly.

 

id be pretty scared of three naked dudes with big hammers...

 

Heres the label for what im brewing this weekend.. i may end up changing it.

 

This years release... Delicious!

 

Here are a few seasonals. The brown was for a farm dinner I catered beer for, and the other two are my 'holiday' beers.

 

Those look very nice. I especially like "hibernation".

 

Thanks! That's simply a negative of a pic I drew when the kids and I were having a charcoal art session.

 

This will be going on 24 bombers in a few days

 

My label...

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Nice label, hope your beer turns out well.

The batch we did turned out great, now working on a lot of different ones again...always brewing

 

Good to hear it worked out. =)

So, I realized that my hops are losing aromas as we speak, and decided "Guess I need to make another batch before they're ruined" (I've heard worse excuses). This time I wanted to make an even more hoppy beer, and utilize my existing stocks as fully as possible, while only ordering a bit of stuff. After deciding on the extra hops I'd order on top of the Citra I had left over, I simply had to make another label. Should be fairly obvious what the hop contents will be...



I think I'll stay with this basic design for now, at least for this particular brewery alias. Niiralan Riviera ("the Riviera of Niirala") will have these sorts of labels with changing colors and images and a focus on more hoppy and "exotic" beers, whereas Kotilaisen Kotipanimo ("Kotilainen's Homebrewery") will be for more traditional and mellow stuff, will need to think of something for those labels.

Oh dear, I may just be getting slightly too excited about this whole thing...

 

No no no no no. That's the amount of thought that people should put u to their labels and names, it's things like that that make me come back to this forum. Keep up the good work!

 

I do love a straight up Citra S.M.A.S.H.

 

i am cool with them, unless i hear banjo music :rockin:

 

Jikininki , russian imperial stout!
the label miss the data of the beer, but the beer isn't finished yet and this is why...

 

My latest.

 

Vicious Fishes

 

Nice first post

 

Nothing very artistic, but enough to know what's in the bottle. Hefeweizen.