Label Tutorial Challenge- Joan

[grapeman]

This is the spot where Joan will present her Tutorial on creating a label from inspiration through complete label. With the holidays on us it may take a while to complete. She will let you know what software she uses so if you need an idea for a Chrismas present......... consider getting yourself her software. Have fun. Thank you Joan for participating and let the fun begin!

So without further ado here it is.


My choice for varietal is St. Pepin grape. I purposely chose this one so no one would have preconceived notions of what the label should depict.Here is a basic description of the variety and what can be expected from that wine. Just assume ABV of 13%.


Some of the following is from the Appelation America website
<H1>Varietal Character</H1>

</A> St. Pepin
You are all part of a band of native and French-American crosses that could easily be called the ‘Polar Bear Gang’. A lot of you are from Minnesota, and you’ve been bred to be tough and hardy. Many of your parents were imprisoned in labs for so long that they go by their identification numbers, rather than their names. Frontenac, otherwise known as the ‘heavy producer’, is the latest to join your gang. People of the northern states are glad that you now control the flow of wine. In the frigid northern winters, weak-limbed vines all too often never deliver.<BR clear=all>
<DIV ="h1-left2">
<H1>Appellations Growing St. Pepin Grapes</H1>


Appellations producing the most St. Pepin wines:
<UL style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 5px">
<TABLE id=appellationList style="WIDTH: 540px; BORDER-COLLAPSE: collapse" cellSpacing=0 ="smText"><T><T>
<T>
<TR>
<TD style="WIDTH: 50%">
<LI style="COLOR: #808080">Minnesota (State Appellation) </LI></TD>
<TD style="WIDTH: 50%">
<LI style="COLOR: #808080">Hudson River Region (AVA) </LI></TD></TR>
<TR>
<TD style="WIDTH: 50%">
<LI style="COLOR: #808080">Quebec (Provincial Appellation) </LI></TD>
<TD style="WIDTH: 50%">
<LI style="COLOR: #808080">Illinois (State Appellation) </LI></TD></TR>
<TR>
<TD style="WIDTH: 50%">
<LI style="COLOR: #808080">West Virginia (State Appellation) </LI></TD>
<TD style="WIDTH: 50%">
<LI style="COLOR: #808080">Lake Wisconsin (AVA) </LI></TD></TR></T></T></T></TABLE>[/list]



<DIV ="h1-left2">
<H1>St. Pepin Grape Details</H1>


St. Pepin is a sister seedling of LaCrosse, which was also developed by Elmer Swenson. However, the similarly cold-hardy St. Pepin is a fruitier and earlier-ripening grape, which makes one of the best white wines in Minnesota. It is also used for juice. The grape is being grown experimentally in South Dakota and in other cold winter states.




Excellent wines have been made from St. Pepin as a varietal and also blended with LaCrosse. When well ripened, fruit quality is similar to Reisling. Selected by Elmer Swenson.
Crisp flavors from adequate acids with a hint of apricot, pineapple, apple, and pear aromas, off-dry with a medium body; similar to Sauvignon Blanc.




Let's use an appropriate fictitious winery for this variety.
Polar Epress Winery




So now the challenge is for you to develop a nice label anyone would be proud to display.Edited by: appleman

 

[Joanie]

The Polar Express Winery, eh? Hmmm.... Here are some ramblings of things I go thru when I have a label to make. I try and kinda free think for ideas. When I read that Appleman's choice was little known St. Pepin, my first thought was to have some saintly looking guy on the label but I thought some religious folks here might think it a little sacrilegious so I crossed that one off.

The next thought...because it's a northern grown wine, maybe snow might be in order. Then when I saw the winery name we're using, an igloo came to mind...maybe with a couple of big old sleepy bears. Then there's the idea of a train...as in the book The Polar Express...maybe stopped at a train station with wine barrels on the platform. I kinda like that idea. St Pepin stamped on the barrels. Now if I could only draw like Chris Van Allsburg! Who am I kidding? I can't draw at all! LOL

As much as I want to read Ramona's thread (It's killing me!!!), I'm not going to until I'm set on what my label will look like and have it underway. I don't want her wonderful ideas to sway me!! I'm thinking the train thing for now tho...

Ok... those are my thoughts for now. More later...

 

[grapeman]

Did I throw you Joan with the Polar Express Winery? I thought it would be appropriate for a northern wine. I like your "train of thought" Joan.


I will refrain from comments as we go along but will monitor both your posts to see if there are any more questions.


Here is a post NW did with a little more sescription of the grape. I added a picture I took this year of my St. Pepin grapes a few days before harvest so you can see what they look like.



<TABLE =tableBorder style="TABLE-LAYOUT: fixed" cellSpacing=1 cellPadding=3 align=center>
<T>
<TR>
<TD =msgableRow vAlign=top></TD></TR>
<TR =msgableRow>
<TD =msgLineDevider vAlign=top height=150>
<DIV =msg style=": left; OVERFLOW: auto">Guess St. Pepin needs many women to propagate...



<TABLE width=400><T><T><T><T>
<T>
<TR>
<TD vAlign=top ="main">ST. PEPIN:
Patented Elmer Swenson propagated variety claimed as cold hardy to -20 deg. F. (ca -29 C.). Is close American hybrid sibling to La Crosse variety. Suitable for making fruity white wine claimed to have Riesling/Muscat character, or as a good tablegrape. Ripens early in season. It must be planted near other grape varieties, eg. Swenson (Red) or its sibling (above), or other varieties that flower in the same period because it is a female pollinate and so requires cross-pollination. The consensus ratio of pollinator/pollinatee is about 1 male to 8 female vines. Some trials are currently underway in S. Dakota and other moderately cold-winter States. </TD></TR>
<TR>
<TD></TD></TR>
<TR>
<TD vAlign=top>

</TD></TR></T></T></T></T></T></TABLE>

Edited By Appleman: I added this picture from my grapes this fall to compare to NW's post.
Pepin is also a town in Wisconcin as is La Crosse......where Elmer Swenson lived and bred his grapes.

</TD></TR></T></TABLE>Edited by: appleman

 

[Joanie]

I've been looking for pics to use. For me the easiest is to go to Google images and type in what I need. I typed "Polar Express" and found some interesting ones. Did you ever think there would be dogs, sheep, and cows named Polar Express? Allposters.com has all kind of categories to search. Or Google "free posters" and a bunch of good websites will come up.

I like using my own photographs and I have some that are possibilities for this label but right now my brain is hung up on a train. I don't happen to have any of my own train photos.

 

[grapeman]

Oh boy- train pictures. If I was a brave man and was closer to my sister in Watertown, I would ask her husband for some photos of trains. The man lives and breathes trains. He has pictures of more trains than you can imagine. I will see over the weekend if I can borrow a booklet my mother has from a trip to Ohio this fall to Amish country. One of the visits they made was to a gettleman's museum. He has spent his life carving trains and has them all on display in a museum setting in a house. Beautiful trains and great pictures. Not sure if they would be useable for this though, but I will check. Edited by: appleman

 

[NorthernWinos]

Around here the weatherman calls the quick moving storms that come down from the northern Hudson Bay a...Polar Express....Strong cold north winds...the storms don't last too long....but are brutal.

 

[grapeman]

Joan, Ramona asked about changing the Winery name to better suit what she has in mind. If you need to also that would be OK, but I think you are going in a good direction already.


NW- our weathermen call those Alberta Clippers.

 

[Joanie]

I'm on a roll, Appleman! No need to change names or for photos. I have what I need. I'm working on the tutorial part now.

 

[grapeman]

I'm looking forward to seeing your ideas unfold Joan!

 

[jobe05]

I'm waiting patiently with baited breath to see and hear what Joan has o say and what she is coming up with. The Gal is amazing, she'll come it with something good, I know it!. However, I also need to say that BOTH GALS are amazing at label making.

 

[Waldo]

What the hell is "baited" breath jobe...what are you trying too catch man !! A cold !!!

I too am anticipating the "process" these ladies use in making their great labels

 

[Joanie]

When I decided to go with the train theme, I went looking for images to
use at Google Images. I downloaded as many as I thought were the
slightest bit good. I don't like to dismiss any possibilities until I
can look at them all in one place. There are usually pluses and minuses
to every one.

I am always looking for content but I'm also looking
for the resolution and size of a picture. Every picture is made up of
pixels--teeny tiny little squares of color. The more
pixels per inch, the higher the resolution/the crisper/clearer the
picture. Also the higher the resolution,the more you can stretch the
picture before those teeny tiny pixels become obvious. Here's an
example using Jobe's front porch swing he sent me where the resolution
was low and the picture was small.

I didn't want the white around the picture so I cropped it which made it even smaller. Because of the look and feel of the original picture, I could basically fake it out by using filters on it then increasing the resolution of 96 to 150 then (keeping it in proportion) could make it bigger and not have it look pixelated.

A word about proportions...I'm not sure what programs people use to make their labels, but they will look better if you keep things in proportion to the original file. Many times that means adjusting size by selecting the picture and only dragging it by the corners. In Photoshop if you select the picture, hold down the Shift key and drag any corner, it will remain in perspective. You can cheat a little but try not to make it obvious.

Hopefully that made a little bit of sense.


Edited by: Joan

 

[Joanie]

Here's what the filtered and enlarged file looked like. If it hadn't already
looked like a water color, it wouldn't have worked at all...lucky for
YOU, Jobe!

 

[Joanie]

Now a little (or maybe a lot) about Photoshop. Yes, there are days when
I don't use it but they are rare! I use it at work and I use it at
home. I love the program but I didn't always! It can be incredibly
frustrating unless you know how to use the tools and what they can do for you. Early on I tried using the Slice tool (used when you are building websites) but I didn't know what it was supposed to do. I couldn't get rid of it!! I couldn't deselect it(I didn't know how!) and I couldn't get it to stop putting slices everywhere so I closed what I was working on, opened a new file, only to have it back again!! I was skert, I tell ya!! I thought I'd ruined the program! (Once I closed the program and reopened, it was gone!) My mother told me to not play with knives and she was right! I swear in the 4 years or so I've used Photoshop, I've never touched the slice tool again! I tell kids at work not to mess with it or baaaad things will happen!

If anyone wants me to talk about the tools and what they do, I'd be more than happy to.

 

[Joanie]

Here are some of the images I found. I won't post them all but I'll give you my thoughts on a few.

This is a poster from the movie and I thought it looked a little too ominous.

I like this one but the file is only an inch by .8 and the resolution is only 72.

I like this one too as it shows a bit more of the train.

This may be the one I go with as the size is good altho the restitution is at 72.

I'm not sure about any of the planters...they may have to go.



Edited by: Joan

 

[Joanie]

I wanted to have barrels of wine sitting by the train with St. Pepin on them so went looking. There are lots of places that sell them so went looking for images. I found good ones but thought this one was perfect!

I didn't want the barrels in the background or the darker barrel on top (where did that come from??) so I erased them all using the eraser tool which left me with a white background.

I don't know if you can see the little dotted lines around the cart (They're called "running ants" as they run around what you've selected and look a little like ants.) but I selected the white background with the selection tool</font> or Magic Wand</font> as it looks like one, selected the inverse which gives me just the cart so I can then copy and paste it into the train file.

Edited by: Joan

 

[grapeman]

I like that last tip Joan. I would never have thought to do that. I usually try to use the lasso tool and always end up getting unwanted junk that I need to clean up later. Had no idea you could select by color.


Great stuff here. Keep it coming.

 

[Joanie]

Here's the cart...a bit big, eh? I want to flip it horizontally so it's facing into the picture. It also doesn't match colorwise to the train and it does not have the same feel to it so it will need some serious adjusting. I also need to add snow to it and label the
barrels.

Edited by: Joan

 

[Joanie]

Notice on the right hand side that the cart appeared on a new layer...it's one of the beauties and sometimes an annoyance of Photoshop. It's wonderful when you want to manipulate a layer like I need to with the cart as no other part of the project will be affected. Anytime you paste into what you're working on it will come up on a new layer as will all text layers. It can be frustrating when you're trying to do something on a layer and nothing seems to be happening. It's 99% of the time because you have the wrong layer selected and it's easily done. I still do it!

 

[Joanie]

I like that last tip Joan. I would never have thought to do that. I usually try to use the lasso tool and always end up getting unwanted junk that I need to clean up later. Had no idea you could select by color.


Great stuff here. Keep it coming.

Appleman, the Magic Wand tool works great if you need to remove a solid background that's a different color than what you want to extract. You can adjust the tolerance level along the top tool bar depending on how similar the color is. When I erased the barrels behind the cart, I purposely used white so I could select it easily. I could have used purple too!