Post your labels here

[Noontime]

Here are the first labels I created for the first wines I made. These took me weeks and weeks of tweaks and tweaks. Adding this and changing that and drawing an “artistic” version of a local landmark bridge, and trying different colors and the silly name (which still embarrasses me) and fonts and kerning. In the end, after all that, it’s just okay.

Absolutely fantastic design. Love it. Simple and clean, really good work. It is so much better than just "OK", you should be proud (wine and beer labels are my business so I see A LOT). You can fool around with the order, scale, and position of the varietal and date. And if you aren't locked into the size of the label, you can fool around with making it a bit shorter vertically. Both these suggestions are nuanced, and pertain to the amount and position of negative (blank) space. Wonderful work; I'd pick this up off the store shelf and give it a try.

 

[Noontime]

I had to cut my bulk aging short and bottle everything to clear the dining room. I shamelessly took the layout idea from @vinny and made it my own. The old me would have taken a couple of weeks of tweaking and testing before I came up with anything, but I’ve been trying to live closer to the rule “just get it done.” Although I did tweak the Zinfandel and Cabernet to lower the main text and adjust the ml and abv to bring everything further away from the edges. Anyway, 1 hour on Avery’s website and I was done. They were going to be all crows, but I enjoy heraldry so I just made them each a different heraldic animal.

Great job. And I like the different animals; not only are they lovely, but they add an easy way to differentiate the varietals.

 

[vinny]

Very nice Vinny, I like how clean it looks.

Very nice ... another winemaker who makes professional looking labels.

Agreed. Vinny - nicely done.

Thank you, thank you, and thank you!

I originally thought the white was too much, but I am always my own worst critic, so I appreciate the kind words.

 

[winemaker81]

I recently took a photo of dawn at N Myrtle Beach, and decided to try it as the background of a label. My 2022 Rhone blend was the best candidate. Yes, I'm a bit ahead, as this wine won't be bottled until November. I like playing with labels, and prototype early, and may have a dozen different versions before making a final decision.

My elder son is my co-winemaker and my niece is part owner of the wine, so we agree on labels. I had already prototyped the label, using a painting of the Rhone valley as a background:



We label half the batch with my son's logo (sword and grapevine) and the other half with mine (grape warrior), so the labels are fairly close in appearance.

Unfortunately, my son prefers the original background, while my niece and I prefer the beach scene. Sounds like an impasse, right?

Nope. Nothing says the labels have to be so similar, so we're doing half the batch with his preference, and half with the other label. Everyone is happy!



These are not 100% final, as I just noticed I want to move the name text on my son's label up and left to be clear of the bridge and building.

 

[vinny]

Caps are done and these are finished, just wondering how you guys put labels on.

I am still working through the trim so my current device is a piece of baseboard with a pencil mark. I pull the bottle flat against it to line it up square. Just slide the label into where the wood and bottle meet and wrap around.

Any fancy options out there?

 

[winemaker81]

Caps are done and these are finished, just wondering how you guys put labels on.

I have a labeled bottle I use as a template. I lay the template and the full bottle down, side-by-side, with the bottoms lined up (bottle height varies). I put the middle of the label at the same height as the template, smoothing down to the bottom and then out from the middle. I manage to screw up very few labels.

Maybe because I've been doing this so long, but it goes quickly.

 

[Denden5136]

My labels - I took a photo of my vines shortly after bud-break and removed the background.

 

[vinny]

Pinot Noir today. This one was a pain in my... Ya!

Technical issues, I think I have 3 different colours going on...

 

[winemaker81]

Technical issues, I think I have 3 different colours going on...

Don't sweat it -- most people will not notice, even if the bottles are side-by-side.

 

[Shurt1073]

Holy smokes ... you guys have some awesome bottle labels! SWEET!

 

[Bearwithmead]

 

[winemaker81]

In the last couple of days, I tweaked my 2022 Rhone label a bit -- it didn't need much, but I spotted a few things. This is a great reason to design early, and give yourself time to consider the design.

As I've noted in the past, my labels have common elements (winery name, tagline, grape warrior logo), but everything else changes. I currently have 20 different wines in the racks, so labels and capsule colors help a lot.

Placement of other elements depends on the underlying graphic. I've faded out images in the past, as it makes the text more readable, but it changes the effect of the label. My new 2022 Rhone is:



I tried several faded versions of this graphic, but it loses the effect. In this case, text placement was easy, as I have dark areas in which to put bright text. My son's label isn't so easy, as the underlying graphic colors vary a lot:



The faded version is easier:



and it works, but the original is more attractive. I ended up completely changing the graphic:



This leaves out the descriptive text, which I could not make work. I practice a statement from W C Fields: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No point in making an ass of yourself."

 

[Ericphotoart]

Just a few of mine

 

[winemaker81]

Just a few of mine
View attachment 100864
View attachment 100865
View attachment 100866
View attachment 100867

VERY nice.

This thread is an idea factory!

 

[Bear Scat Wine]

 

[winemaker81]

Are your bottles labelled? I always like to see how it works on the bottle.

I finally labeled the wines I bottled in November and December. I've had the labels prepped to print, but could not get them to print properly on the color laser I purchased (Brother MFC-L3750CDW). Side margins printed fine, but the top and bottom margins were large and compressed the print so it didn't fit on the labels.

I frigged with it off-n-on since then, prepped 3 times to take the files to Staples to print, but kept going to get the printer to work. I searched online for solution but found nothing. The other day I got on chat with a Brother rep, which went no place. She said she'd research and be back in a few minutes. 20 minutes later I was disconnected for no activity, then got an email saying I disconnected.

While on their site, I downloaded a new print driver, and it worked!!! I labeled 170+ bottles over 2 evenings. [For those not into technicals, a "driver" is a program that the operating system (Windows 10) uses to talk to a device (laser printer).]

My son will be taking his 2 cases home and I'll be delivering my niece's 4 cases later this summer. This leave me with a LOT of wine ...

The Super Tuscan AKA Dark of Night background is a photo taken by @Kraffty, used with his permission. Unfortunately, the resolution of the label making program (Avery's Design & Print) made the photo muddy in comparison to the beautiful original, but it still makes a good label.

The Rhone's background is a painting from the Rhone valley, and the Port background is a dancer I found online. This one I had to stretch the background to fill the label, which I did with Paint.NET. I think Adobe does a better job of stretching, but the cost of Adobe makes me say "no".

 

[Raptor99]

@winemaker81 Gimp is open source and will do pretty much everything that photoshop will do. There is a bit of a learning curve, but for the technically inclined it is a good choice.

 

[winemaker81]

@winemaker81 Gimp is open source and will do pretty much everything that photoshop will do. There is a bit of a learning curve, but for the technically inclined it is a good choice.

I haven't used Gimp in quite a few years -- I need to check it out again.

Paint.NET does a LOT, and the learning curve is steep -- when I need to do something new, I have to search for help. I expect Gimp is about the same, which is ok.

 

[gamble]

Promotional wine for our summer gallery's opening. Features I and my wife's artwork

 

[Raptor99]

@winemaker81 After some research online, I learned how to use GIMP to create line drawings from photos. I created the following image from a photo that I found on line:



I was thinking of using this as a background image on a label, but never finished the project. Since it is all rendered in black and white, I could change the background and drawing colors to whatever I want. Or set the background to transparent and put it on a label with a background color.