| The HP Indigo WS6600 |
The highly efficient HP Indigo WS6600 Digital Label System takes label printing to a whole new level! With minimal waste, exact quantity label production and reduced obsolescence- printing labels digitally is the most environmentally conscious method of creating high quality labels to showcase your brand. How do we do it?
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Rose City Label has a very long history with Art Larrance – one of the true Oregon craft beer pioneers. Portland Brewing was founded in 1986
by Art and his high school friend and fellow craft beer legend, Fred Bowman. Read the full story here. Way back in the days of Portland Brewing, we were lucky enough to supply sheetfed, glue applied labels for many of their early beers. We still have a bottle of this Thunderhead Cream Stout in our office; these were truly the beginnings of craft beer in Oregon.
By 1998, Art and his trusted friend Ron Gansberg were pioneering again, starting a small brewery in the basement of the Racoon Lodge on SW Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway. Their reputation grew for top quality barrel aged sour beers, and again Rose City Label was lucky enough to print labels for the beers they bottled.
Art’s son Tim Larrance returned to the family business after a successful career with national and international beverage brands. As VP of Sales and Marketing, part of his job was to bring the packaging and branding up the level of the beers. They needed to elevate their brand to keep up with the growing Cascade reputation. This was not an easy process – it is always a balancing act to keep the link to the heritage while moving forward to attract new customers. Luckily, Cascade engaged with Andrew Bolton and the talented team at Murmur Creative. The Murmur team listened and helped Cascade articulate their message and bring the updated brand to life. Thankfully, they were also very good to work with on the printing side. They knew the process and its limitations and maximized every aspect of the label design.
Among the many good things Murmur did with the new designs, they built an integrated system to include different beer styles and price points into one cohesive family. The labels are distinct (see below) but with the Cascade branding front and center, it is easy to see that they are all part of one product group.
The team at Murmur did the research to really understand our printing process and capabilities. This allowed Cascade to get the most impactful label at the most affordable price. The label size was optimized to run most efficiently on our printing press while still providing the desired look on the bottle. The three tiers were separated to ensure the top level products have the special embellishments to set them apart:
By considering the available features early in the design process, Murmur was able to execute Cascade’s vision with no surprises on press. This preparation is what makes Murmur (and Cascade) such a good partner for Rose City Label.
We are privileged to work with many great brands, but few have the total package – great products, great design, and wonderful people making it happen every day. If your product could benefit from a branding facelift in 2018, please call us today. Together with partners like Murmur, we can help you elevate your brand and get your product to pop off the shelf.
Cheers!
Thanks to all our amazing customers that have helped us grow and prosper all these years. This retrospective will give some history, some context in our current environment, and some wonderful hopes for the future. None of this would have been possible without you – thank you so very much.
We have the experience to navigate the changing world of label production. Self adhesive roll labels, 
which are 90% of our work now, weren’t even invented for the first 30 years of our business. Technology has changed over time, but the timeless values of hard work and fairness don’t ever change. You can be rest easy knowing your work is being handled by the most experienced label printing crew.
High quality food, wine, and beer labels dominate our production now.
We work very hard to keep our top customers happy and growing. As their production grows, they can’t be limited by a label supplier that can’t keep up.
Because of the trust you continue to put in our 
team, we continue to grow and prosper. 2017 has been a great year!
The future is bright at Rose City Label. With continued investment and training, we are constantly upping our game to serve you better. This year we are upgrading again:
Workflow Automation – this is the biggest change for 2018. This integrated system ties our office business system directly into production. As more and more digital jobs demand faster lead times, this automation will make every job faster and more accurate. Visibility for the office staff will help plan production and make accurate delivery time estimates. This is big! Stay tuned for more information as we fully implement this cutting edge technology.
Label Designs for 2018 – Nobody is facing LESS competition in the new year. Your labels have to stand out in a crowded market. Shelf space is limited and you need to grab and keep the consumers’ attention. This post based on a Forbes magazine article gives great insight. Here are the main takeaways –
Thanks to you, we are well positioned to continue our growth into 2018. Our investment and our very strong team have us poised for the future.
With your trust, we look forward to 2018 with great anticipation. If there is anything we can do for you – related to label printing or not – please call us today. We are happy to give back to the community that has been so good to us.
Cheers!
Each week, Rose City Label generates excess wooden pallets. We would love to give them away to a business or individual that can use them. There are so many of them that they are tough for us to manage. The pile of pallets seems to grow and grow. A few times each year we have to do a major cleanup of our pallet area. We have free pallets – come and get them!
We generate all these pallets because we buy our raw materials in large, bulk pallet loads. We turn each pallet into 10-30 different custom label orders. These small printing orders usually go out via Direct Transport courier or UPS and some are even picked up by the customer in our office. Because we buy in large quantities (the mile) and sell in small, specialized batches (the foot), we don’t send out nearly as many pallets as we take in.
We buy over 50 different materials from four main vendors. These materials come from all over the USA, but most come from Seattle, Vancouver, WA and California. Because of these different sources, products and shipping locations, we get lots of different sized pallets. Odd sized pallets are tougher to recycle – most recyclers only want one large pile of identical pallets. Unfortunately, we can’t offer that on a regular basis. Think about this when you select your vendors and products – when you have odd sizes of containers or pallets, it is harder to find a home to reuse these items.
Because we can’t find a reliable source to reuse our pallets, the next best option is to recycle. Our neighbor McFarlane Bark takes our pallets and grinds them up for residential and commercial bark chips and ground cover. They have a process to remove all nails and other contamination so the finished product is clean, beautiful landscaping material. This is a great option for our odd collection of pallets and we are lucky to have them as a neighbor. Learn more McFarlanes Bark by clicking here.
Even though we have a good, eco-friendly solution to the pallet problem, we still have Free Pallets! Re-use without any grinding or shredding is a better, less impactful way to use the pallets. If you have a need for a few or for lots of pallets, we have them.
This is just one example of the eco-friendly systems we have in our business. We work hard to reduce our environmental footprint in all areas of sales, office, production and shipping. If you have a good suggestion for us, or have questions about how you can improve your eco-friendliness, please call us today. We are happy to help.
Government label approvals are never much fun, but we are TTB Label Submission Experts so we can help demystify the process. We won’t make it fun, or even easy, but we can help you know what to expect and take away some of the confusion. This is a general overview that is subject to change with regulations and personnel changes, but as of today, the label approval atmosphere is about as good as it has been recently.
Your wine is your passion – sharing it with the world excites you. Whether this is your first bottling year or your 20th, it pays to learn (or review) the rules. TTB has made it easier than ever with these online resources. Do your homework, know the rules, and work with TTB Wine Label Submission Experts.
Consider all the blood, sweat and tears you have put into your amazing wine. The hours and agony to get the blending just right. Lots of time, effort and money, right? Then please, don’t go cheap on the wine label designer! This is some of the best money you will spend and it is worth every penny. Many consumer studies show that wine is among the most ‘label influenced’ of all retail purchase categories. Use a seasoned professional, not an intern or a relative in design school. We only do basic changes and typesetting internally, but we have an excellent list of top notch wine label designers. Use a professional and your results will be amazing.
Because we are the TTB Label Submission Experts, we have developed a very specific work flow to make sure your job gets printed right the first time. We don’t vary from this proven process because it works. Here is the work flow:
Finally, if you have done all your homework, selected a great designer, and partnered closely with us, you will be thrilled on bottling day. Your labels will look great on the bottle – what a wonderful feeling!
Thank you for trusting us and letting us be a part of this amazing process. Your trust is why we are TTB Label Submission Experts. We have been writing about this topic since 2010 in these two posts – click here to see that old post. Please contact us early in the process so we can make sure your jobs run properly the first time. We have connections to designers, mobile bottlers, glass suppliers, label approval lawyers and other great professionals to make the experience as painless as possible.