Making labels for your beer

[Eli_D]

Guys,
I put a post on my blog a while back about making labels for your beer and it's been a massively popular post, so I thought I'd do an update and actually show folk how to use some of the free software to make labels of your own.

It's been quite a lengthy day writing it up so I'd appreciate if anyone wants to have a read and check it all makes sense and is useful?

http://www.elidonald.co.uk/blog/an-update-making-your-own-labels-for-your-home-brew-beer/

thanks
Eli

 

[JamesMcS]

Hi Eli, that looks really good, thanks for taking the time - I've been messing around with Google images and the online software that's in the Adobe website, but it's quite limited font and design wise for someone as un-designy as me.

I'm looking the plain and bold look you've gone for, I might experiment a bit with that before it comes to printing my first lot off.

As an aside, I picked up 300 10x10cm easy peel labels from the bay for about 4 quid delivered

 

[Monte Cristo]

Excellent job Eli that must have taken you ages. It all looks good to me very straight forward, not used gimp myself as i'm an Illustrator man, but does it let you step the labels up i.e 4 or 6 labels to a page?:hat:

 

[Eli_D]

Hey guys, thanks for checking it over for me.

I'm afraid I'm not actually a gimp user either so not sure about multiple labels. I'm a fireworks user but given the cost of graphics software I thought it might be a good thing to work out the basics for folk who don't have access to proper graphics tools.

Would need to have a google to see what it can and can't do

 

[Eli_D]

Have to confess JamesMcS, I'm still using milk :p

 

[JamesMcS]

It was one of the first things I read about when looking into labels, but sadly I have an inkjet printer... I tried the labels in a laser printer at work, instant paper jam - so will probably be going with the hairspray trick when the time comes...

 

[FatCol]

Nice work Eli!

Don't know if you guys are aware of this site, which has a few customisable free labels that can be useful for those not so familiar with design work etc.

http://www.beerlabelizer.com

 

[Frogbrew]

Nice work Eli!

Don't know if you guys are aware of this site, which has a few customisable free labels that can be useful for those not so familiar with design work etc.

http://www.beerlabelizer.com

I use this site and stick with milk as they're easy to remove for your next batch.
Shame you can only have a choice of 4 designs though:sad:

 

[devexwarrior]

I use this site and stick with milk as they're easy to remove for your next batch.
Shame you can only have a choice of 4 designs though:sad:

Same here,

 

[FatCol]

I use this site and stick with milk as they're easy to remove for your next batch.
Shame you can only have a choice of 4 designs though:sad:

Hi, I'm intrigued by the "stick with milk" comment?

Do you simply print them onto plain paper and use milk as the adhesive? I've never heard of this before, but it might be much easier than my current method...

 

[Eli_D]

yeah it's that simple Fatcol.
I discovered that method through forums like this when I started and haven't looked back.
The labels come off in seconds with hot water and don't leave any nasty glue.

 

[marksa222]

great article thanks.

I used it to make this;

Which although not great, i'm happy to use as my first attempt.

I used gimp a while ago for something else, but totally forgot how to do it. Found the blog really helpful.

 

[Eli_D]

Thats cool Marksa222. First fancy label of many.

 

[Monte Cristo]

yeah it's that simple Fatcol.
I discovered that method through forums like this when I started and haven't looked back.
The labels come off in seconds with hot water and don't leave any nasty glue.

I find colour laser printed labels work best with the old milk glue trick but i suppose inkjet would work also if you use thicker paper, does anyone use inkjet and milk? :hat:

 

[Donny70]

Hi don't know if there's much interest in this but I've created a Facebook group for showing your latest beer labels.

If anyone is looking for label ideas or just want to show off their creations, I'd really like to see you there as I think that it can grow into a library that everyone can use :)

www.facebook.com/groups/craftbrewlabels/

 

[JamesMcS]

Hi, have just submitted a join request, what a great idea!

 

[Donny70]

Fantastic, can't wait to get some more content on there

 

[ericmark]

I have colour inkjet and lazer black so since stored in shed and colour runs it's black and what ever colour the paper is. To start with used picture of the can but wanted to be able to see at a glance what beer was what so started with other designs. I never rip old (original) label off as it leaves sticky marks and use sticky back plastic or selotape to non BBC watches just enough to stick it on so easy to remove latter.

I also had a look at Gimp but in the main use CS5 to me the main idea is so I can refer back and decide what worked and what did not so start date, bottled date, kit used, and ABV or s.g.

When my Daughter got married I called it "Jump beer" her new family name the next one was Jump 2 naturally but since I is an IT engineer called it IT beer. Some times nice to have a little fun. But back to old boring labels now.