DIY Liquor Bottle Label Design – 4 Major Criteria to Consider

As a small craft distiller managing your own business, a huge part of the job description becomes Marketing, unless you can afford to hire someone. Whether you are doing it yourself or hiring someone there are several key criteria you should be aware of and participate in. In this blog I’ve briefly outlined the process I went through to design Murray’s Fools Distilling Co.’s first label, ‘The Snowshoe Vodka’.

1. Research the Legal Regulations and Requirements

• What is required to be on your label by both state and federal authorities
• What is not allowed on your label by state and federal authorities
  
  

2. Size Matters

• Bottle
  • Appropriate size label for the bottle
• Fonts
  • Will your brand/type text be legible among other bottles that it will share shelf space with? For example, often fancy scrolls or text-graphics get lost and are hard to read.
  • Is the font size large enough to be easily recognized from a foot or two away?
  • Is the font size large enough in the required Warning regulations?
• Graphic(s)
  • Is the graphic large enough to be a clear indication of what the label is conveying?
  • Is your logo clearly visible?
  • Too much detail and too many graphics will make the label very busy and hard for the consumer to define what the message is or recognize your brand.
    
    

3. Paper and texture

• Will you be writing on your label? For example Murray’s Fools Distilling Co. writes our batch information on each bottle, so we needed to ensure we had changed the texture in that particular area so it could be written on
• Will it rip/tear when packing? Choose a strong durable paper if you want to ensure the label isn’t compromised when moving in and out of boxes.
  
  

4. Continuity of Brand

• Are you crafting other products that will need the same ‘look’ and style? Consider what other products you may be producing when designing your first label, creating a repeatable style ensures the next product will continue your recognizable flair.

These are the factors I considered to be most important when I designed our label. However, there are other things, such as color, label-shape, and quantities to order, to keep in mind and take into consideration when designing. The best test for me was to create and print some of my label ideas, tape them to my bottle and set them up next to some other brand bottles we had purchased. If my design got lost and didn’t stand-out, the design was out of the running. If the design looked good it became an option.

Watch the video below for a look into my process for designing ‘The Snowshoe’ label.