by admin | May 24, 2016 | Beer Wine Spirits, Food Beverage, Label Design
When it comes to designing a label for your craft beer, you have several things to consider. In most cases, you’ll feature your brand and logo on every label, as well as your multipack packaging. So how best to maintain a cohesive brand style while making each individual brew stand out from its brethren? How do you deliver variations on a theme while making each brew instantly recognizable as part of your brand?
Part of the beauty of craft beer is its individuality; its uniqueness. For most brewers, this extends to the artwork on the label. In many cases, you already have a remarkable logo that reflects your business personality. By featuring your logo and using labels with variances in color, background image or even shape, you make each batch instantly recognizable to your loyal fans while introducing your brand to everyone who tries any of your beers for the first time.
Varying Labels by Beer Style
Many craft brewers will simply change the background color and the text to differentiate their IPA from their German Lager. Certainly, this will get the job done. However, this can make for a shelf display that’s rather lackluster.
Why not have a little fun with the feature of each brew? For example, you could underlay a subtle golden honeycomb design into the background of your honey wheat ale labels. Your double-hopped IPA labels could feature your logo artwork perched against a background of pen-and-ink-drawn hops. The possibilities are as limitless as the flavors of your craft brews.
Labeling Your Seasonal Brews
Seasonal craft beers are increasingly popular, and many brewers wisely capitalize on that consumer trend by offering a cycle of limited edition beers throughout the year. You can have fun with seasonal craft beer labels as well. As above, background images or patterns are a good choice.
You can also change the shape of your seasonal beer labels to reflect the flavors within. Imagine a summer shandy with the label die-cut into the shape of a lemon. Your fall flavors ale could feature a pumpkin-shaped label and the winter stout may have your logo emblazoned on a snowman’s chest.
Custom Beer Labels for Special Events
If you’re hosting an event, or providing libations for a wedding, company retreat or other affair, that can become a fabulous opportunity to pair your image with the theme of the celebration. Even if your usual label printing is done on a conventional printing press, Rose City Label can easily do a short run of special edition beer labels on our digital press.
Because there are no plates to manufacture, digital label printing is perfectly suited to short runs such as for special events. With this technology, you can create custom craft beer labels for community events without the setup expenses associated with traditional label printing. So don’t be afraid to feature your limited editions and special event brews with subtle changes in art framing your recognizable brand logo. Your consumers will be impressed with the detail.
Ready to discuss how we can help your collection of brews jump off the shelf with a unique set of eye-catching custom beer labels? Bring us your artwork and tell us your goals. We’ll help you determine the perfect way to make your craft beer collection stand out among the rest.
by admin | May 17, 2016 | Label Design, Technical
Arguably one of the most versatile aspects of our HP Indigo Digital Offset press is the ability to use white ink. On a reflective or holographic stock, white ink opens up a world of possibilities for your label. While colored inks tint the reflective stock, retaining its “shiny” look, white ink is opaque—covering the stock like a coat of paint.
What does this mean? Well, one of the drawbacks to the digital press is that you can’t work with metallic inks. However, if you have your sights set on a reflective detail for your labels, a bit of reversal can deliver this dramatic look.
Instead of using metallic ink on matte stock, you can begin with a shiny or iridescent stock. Colored inks will tint the stock for a bright gleam in any hue you could desire. Meanwhile, mixing white ink with color—or using white ink alone—will block out portions of the reflective nature of your stock. To the observer, the shiny bits will pop against a matte background.
The effect is that of reflective ink on matte stock, although in reality the reverse is true. But we won’t tell if you won’t!
White Ink Adds Versatility
The versatility afforded by using opaque white on the digital press is vast. Shiny, reflective stocks are nice, but in many cases, they make smaller fonts difficult to read. Often, a label that is 100 percent reflective lacks visual interest. This rather defeats the purpose of using “shiny” to draw attention to your brand.
Therefore, the ability to use both opaque and translucent colors over a reflective stock adds greatly to the appeal of choosing the digital press. Your project may be a short run, perhaps for a new, experimental or promotional product. Or maybe you need sequential or otherwise variable data. Projects such as these are ideally suited to digital printing.
Cohesive Look Between Print Methods
In the past, you’d have had to give up all hope of metallic, shiny or reflective details when choosing digital. If your existing brand logo makes use of reflective ink, you would be limited to the traditional press for each project. This could make a limited edition or other short run project somewhat cost prohibitive, as the plates and other setup expenses are the same whether you need 100 labels or 10,000.
By making use of white ink, you can add an occasional short, digital run of special labels to your existing product line without sacrificing the look your customers have grown accustomed to. As you know, maintaining a cohesive look is important for brand recognition. White ink enables us to give you the metallic look you desire in spite of the limitations to available ink colors on the digital press.
At Rose City Label, we enjoy using innovative solutions such as white ink to tackle the challenges our clients face in a competitive marketplace. Whatever your labeling challenges may be, we welcome the opportunity to find the perfect—and most cost-effective—solution for your product line. Get in touch today and let’s talk about how to make your vision a reality.
by admin | Feb 18, 2011 | Customers/Examples, Label Design
This great information was published in ‘Labels and Labelling’ magazine – the recapped some branding guidelines from the international branding and packaging agency, Claessens-Cartils. This is great information that any label buyer should consider when they are deciding on a bottle, package, and label design.
Every brand has both an identity and an image. The IDENTITY is the actual value and quality of the brand – low price, high quality, cutting edge, established, or whatever you truly offer to the consumer. The IMAGE is the perception created by the packaging and label. Your goal is to make sure the packaging allows the true IDENTITY to show through.
Whatever your brand IS, make sure your label reflects that. Here are three examples:
AUTHORITY – If your product shows self confidence, trustworthiness, and excellent quality, consider these design element: Capital letters, high contrast colors, high position on the bottle. Other elements include a shield or a coat of arms showing a regal, established backing. Smirnoff Vodka is shown as an excellent example of this brand message.
AUTHENTICITY – This brand is perceived to be real, and to have an honest story to tell. Specific logo fonts (like no other), custom colors, and a brand ‘icon’ are great features of a label projecting this image. Kettle One has a label that reflects the 300 year old tradition of small batch vodka. The design incorporates the original coal-fired copper pot, which is still in operation today. The 10th generation family business has a true, interesting story to tell, and consumers react well to it.
PRODUCT EXPECTATION – This label tries to convey the smell and taste of the product inside the package. With vodka, the image desired is purity, smoothness, and an alcohol kick. Absolut vodka captures this with bold a bold typeface, a rounded bottle, and crystal clear labels giving the ‘no label look’.
This entire article can be found on the agency website -please check it out to read even more great tips.
