Need a Critique? Let me know...

[THRobinson]

I just graduated from a 3yr Graphic Design course and finding that I have a lot of spare time on my hands between freelancing gigs. I picked the wrong time to switch careers.

That being said, I started brewing again for the first time in 10yrs when I was given a basic brewing kit at Xmas. Which is what lead me to this site.

Figured since people are helping me with brew questions, I'll help them with Design.

So... if anyone wants a critique of their label from a professional Designer's point of view, post your label here and I'll give some tips and pointers.

 

[Pommy]

show us some of YOUR work first

 

[Noontime]

show us some of YOUR work first

Smart man.

but hey...it's free, so the more opinions the better.

 

[THRobinson]

I'd have to make beer labels first... else I'd just be posting non-related images.

Was debating making them, I guess now I will.

 

[Edcculus]

I'll chime in here too. I have a printing background and work in the prepress department at a label company. Acutally, a lot of my job consists of fighting with graphic designers who don't know how to design for flexo ! I try to chime in on a lot of the label threads, but feel free to PM me also if you need any private advice.

I'm not the greatest designer, since my education and experience is geared more toward production, but if you look around, I've posted a few of my labels and logos here.

 

[wildwest450]

How about you make me a logo and I'll critique it?

 

[THRobinson]

How about you make me a logo and I'll critique it?

That could work though, your avatar of the two barmaid would make a good label in itself.

Did you have a label drafted up? Something I could grab and work with? or looking for something from scratch?

 

[wildwest450]

That could work though, your avatar of the two barmaid would make a good label in itself.

Did you have a label drafted up? Something I could grab and work with? or looking for something from scratch?

Ah, i'm trying to come up with a brewery logo, i'm a kegger, so bottle labels are lost on me. I actually have zero skill or insight on what to do for one. If I figure something out, i'll give you a holler.

 

[THRobinson]

Sounds good... if local I'd say grab a beer and sketch out ideas but, with that distance well, makes brainstorming harder.

So, brewery logo... not a label. Do you mean something like

http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/34/88/c2/steam-whistle-landmark.jpg

I didn't make this, wish I did... it's a Canadian brewery in Toronto but that's their company logo. Works on a bottle too but, doesn't have ingredients or anything.

 

[tomije87]

I'll go first :cross: Still a work in progress. I'm keeping everything golf themed.

http://s965.photobucket.com/albums/ae133/tomije87/Beer%20Labels/?action=view&current=AmberAle.jpg

 

[coy]

love hearing critiques.

I posted this up. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f46/first-logo-kind-162960/index3.html
page 3 for sampler.. as stated I allready had the fish drawn up on illustrator and added his/her name to it real quick.
I'd like to hear what you had to say about it.

 

[THRobinson]

I like the shadow of the golfer... it's subtle and effective rather than slapping a golfers image on the label.

The drop shadow behind 'back nine brewing' is very heavy though. Dark red with black outline plus heavy black drop shadow with added blur makes the title a bit harder to read and muddled. It also starts to bump into the central image... I'd pull back on the drop shadow, or at least the amount of blur.

Not sure if would work well or not but, another idea would be to use grass instead of green. Though in my mind, I'm seeing the name actually in the grass as though it were cut out, placed on the lawn then photographed... could be photoshopped but would require quite some time.

The yellow banner has a good drop shadow. I would look at changing the lettering though. With a curved banner you'd pretty much want to match the lettering to the curve. Maybe stick the bottling date on the left fold and the % on the right fold, and leave the center just for the name. The word ALE also looks higher than the rest of the name.

 

[THRobinson]

love hearing critiques.

I posted this up. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f46/first-logo-kind-162960/index3.html
page 3 for sampler.. as stated I allready had the fish drawn up on illustrator and added his/her name to it real quick.
I'd like to hear what you had to say about it.

Would this be the one with the brown/bottle background?

I was reading that thread yesterday actually, though responded about something said on the first page about using a higher resolution. Though if using Illustrator, well, vector based so, won't need to worry about resolution

I like the idea and the concepts leading up to this one. The colours used are good, because against a beer bottle, especially under normal lighting the bottle will be very dark so, the colours used will stand out just fine.

In fact if using a clear label I'd leave the "Mad Fish" letters clear and use the colour of the bottle showing through instead.

Like in the last post, I'd use the two back folds of the banner for infor regarding alcoholic %, bottle, volume... except have the lettering match the angle of the fold which looks to be about 30 degrees. And again, when printed on a clear label, use the colour of the bottle, or because its a small font may have to use the dark red.

 

[coy]

that be the one. (bottle color)..
I probably wouldn't go with the banner myself but tried to keep the roundness that he had been going with. the text is harder to work with on a curver (kerning and all).
Not sure I agree with stuff being placed on the back folds though.

Thanks for the honest response.
No post up some of your work (random images are fine) so we can look at it

 

[THRobinson]

Well, from what I have online...

This is from the Hugo Awards, they needed a new logo for their annual awards. Sadly, no way around it, we had to use that rocket, as it's been on their trophy 50+yrs. Went for something classic, bit retro, like the old days of SciFi. 3 stars represented the 3 main categories for the awards before someone asks.

This was a slight redesign project for Sprite we did in my course, also my first attempt at creating something in 3D which wasn't taught in my course.

My site is currently being built... else I'd just send a link to that. Right now the website consists of 1 image, just a mockup of the site to be... low res jpg but, used it for feedback regarding basic layout and concept. I'll fire up the MAC and see about posting a few more samples. Recent graduate so, so far mostly class projects. Could post work related but, who wants to see a catalogue? not me...

 

[ReverendTap]

I'll chime in here as well as a third designer open for questions/critiques. I'm not professional and haven't got a design degree, just an artistically-minded guy who's been doing freelance design work off and on for a few years. Website will hopefully be up sometime in the not too distant future, but in the meantime the most directly relevant examples I have are in this thread: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f46/dubious-labels-162059/.