Homebrew Labels

[och29]

I guess this counts as equipment...



Although I went straight to kegs I've always bottled some of my batch both to give away but also to keep and try at different ages. Most of these bottles are recycled from commercial brews with a duct tape label! Not exactly in keeping with the effort and care I put into making the beer itself so I decided to get a logo designed. While it definitely isn't for everyone I thought it was worth spending a decent amount of money to end up with something I was truly happy with and can use for all my brews.

I used a site called 99Designs which lets you run a contest than many different designers can enter. You can then send each designer feedback throughout the process and you end up with a variety of different designs. I wanted something bold and modern with space for the vital recipe ingredients and am hugely pleased with the results. You can have a look at the contest I ran here for an idea of how it works.



If you fancy giving it a go you can get a free contest upgrade worth £65 if you run a contest before 12th Feb and follow this link (it will also help me out too!)

[chris2012]

That looks awesome! Very professional.

[och29]

Thanks, they look great on the bottle too!

[Belter]

What an excellent idea. The other designs are also pretty awesome. A bargain for professional design also.

[Leebo87]

Your labels look great! Really good idea too. I've been toying with the idea of putting more professional looking labels on my bottles. Once you had the design where did you go to get them printed/what was the cost?

Cheers, Lee

[och29]

So far I haven't had them professionally printed. I just used my inkjet and some Pritt Stick. Having had a brief look the first price I've found is £40 for 100 printed and cut on adhesive paper. If you don't mind cutting them out I'm sure you could have the professionally laserjet printed from ~£5 for 100 of any combination of different labels... plus £1 for the Pritt Stick!

[Leebo87]

Awesome, they look great - thought you had them professionally printed. Will definitely look into getting some designed - should help with those half cautious looks when non-Brewers inspect the bottle

[Charles1968]

Very nice labels. Don't use pritt or glue though. Just wet the back of the paper with milk - it sticks really well as it dries as milk protein (casein) is a natural glue. Labels glued with milk also fall off very quickly after a soak in water.

For speed and convenience, you can also buy sheets of adhesive labels that will run through an inkjet printer. Saves cutting them out and they look very neat and slick.

[och29]

Will definitely look into getting some designed

Well if you fancy giving it a go I've got an referral link that expires on the 12th which will give you a free upgrade on a contest worth £65... here you go.

[Jonnyconga]

I love the designs! All the other ones too. Not cheap but not expensive considering the quality you get. Did you get 3 label designs? How does it work if you want more in the same style. Can you edit them yourself? Well impressed though.

[Leebo87]

Sadly payday doesn't arrive until the end of the month and I've just bought most of my AG set up this month. Also interest in the answers to the above q's

[och29]

I love the designs! All the other ones too. Not cheap but not expensive considering the quality you get. Did you get 3 label designs? How does it work if you want more in the same style. Can you edit them yourself? Well impressed though.

I provided three names as examples as well as some copy for the rest of the label hence why they all have the same ingredients. I'm happy with Photoshop and to an extent Illustrator so asked for a label design that can be transferred between brews easily. The designer sent me the files as a complete image and as an editable one. All I have to do is to change to edit the text and colour to get a new label (such as the Paradise Saison photo). They also sent me a vector file (can be scaled up infinitely without loss of quality) of the logo so I can add that to anything I else I want or send it to another designer if a want to do a 'special release' label. At the end of the contest they transfer the copyright over to you do it's legally yours... which is quite fun!

Here's an example of another label


The designers are all very willing to work within your requirements and you can always contact them after the contest if you want to change things or make a new label in the same style. If you don't have access to any editing software (try Paint.NET or GIMP which are free) or enthusiasm to learn then you can always use a 99Designs Task. Tasks cost £10 or less if you pre-buy in bulk and can be anything design or editing-wise that can be done within 1 hour. You can submit them at any time of the day and 99Designs will match you to someone who can do the task then and there. They'd easily be able to change the text on a label and it's not a one shot deal you can give feedback and ask for updates if you're unhappy, without having to spend more.

My only caveat is that if you want to edit the designs and you don't tell the designers to only use free fonts then they you might have to buy the fonts they used. However it's an easy problem to avoid and there are a huge variety of different fonts out there for free so even if designers don't listen then you can find 'knockoff' free font that are essentially identical.

[Jonnyconga]

Thanks so much for all that background och29. I like the way it seems that once you have the basic design you can tweek it for different brews. I had a go at designing my own labels years ago but they looked a bit crap.... Like the name 'dead pump' too.
If I didn't have kids pro designed labels would be next on the list.....

[pads72]

These look really great och29, I'm sure the skill is all in the brief!

[och29]

Like the name 'dead pump' too.

I like the name a lot more than that brew day!