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Bottle Labels: A History Lesson

They say not to judge a book by its cover. And that’s fair…where books are concerned. But when weighing one’s options in a beer, wine or spirits purchase, there’s a lot to be said for the bottle labels. Good bottle label design can be very telling in the quality of its contents and there’s a long history that’s led the industry to its current practice.

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What it Takes to Create a Custom Product Label

Whether it be labels for beer, ejuice or salsa, producing a custom product label is a complex process. From file errors to material mistakes to winding the labels the wrong direction, each project requires an extreme attention to detail. Blue Label’s process ensures your satisfaction the first time. We are dedicated to doing the job right, and doing it fast. Here’s a behind the scenes look at the steps required to efficiently produce high quality custom labels.

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10 Beautiful Label Designs and the Designers Behind Them

Beer labels, crowler cans, and wine bottles, oh my! Standing out amongst the competition is an art in itself. Conveying your brand’s message while grabbing your consumer’s attention can be tricky. Specialties like hot foil stamping and embossing certainly catch the eye, but nothing competes with an amazing original design combined with quality label printing. Check out some of our favorites below.
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Growlers VS. Crowlers: What’s the Difference?

⚞ The Highlights:

A growler is a reusable jug, typically glass or stainless steel, for transporting draft beer, while a crowler is a single-use aluminum can that’s filled and sealed on demand.
Growlers commonly come in 64 oz. jugs requiring labels around 4×6 inches, while crowlers are typically 32 oz. cans needing labels closer to 6×9.5 inches.
In comparison, a standard 12 oz. beer bottle or can holds less than a 32 or 64 oz. container and generally needs a shorter label—often around 3.625×8 inches.

What is a growler? If you’re a beer aficionado, you’ve heard of the growler. Growlers are airtight glass, steel or ceramic jugs that provide patrons with a portable, refillable vessel that can be filled up with draft beer at your favorite craft brewery and taken on the go. As the name might suggest, growlers are quite large in size and can transport a lot of beer—64 ounces, to be exact, or a little more than five bottles of beer—while half growlers (called howlers) can hold a respectable 32 ounces. Some herald growlers and howlers as a more mobile flavor-keeping keg. Indeed, what a time to be alive!

So, what can make the new age of beer transport even better? In comes the crowler. But what is a crowler of beer? It’s the half growler’s aluminum twin. If you haven’t seen a 32-ounce crowler can of beer yet, you will – and you will love it. However, is one portable beer vessel a better option than the other? Both crowlers and growlers have their perks, so keep reading to find out which may be the better fit for your needs.

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5 Hot Foil Label Designs We Love

One of the things we love most about our job is that we work directly with some of America’s best packaging designers. The most successful projects are a collaborative effort between the brand owners, designers, and packaging vendors to make products that capture the customer’s interest and imagination. These projects use a variety of decoration techniques like embossing, spot varnishes, and screen printing to achieve a high level of complexity and depth.

Of all the decoration techniques, hot foil stamping stands out as the most effective. At a relatively low cost per piece, gold, silver, and other types of foils can be used to create outstanding, multifaceted compositions very economically. We’ve compiled five hot foil label projects that we had a lot of fun working on to demonstrate the versatility of foil stamping, especially when used in combination with digital printing.

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Antique Beer Bottles We Love

When building the vision for your unique beer bottles, you can learn a lot from what’s been done in the past. If you want a vintage look for your craft beer, antique beer bottles like these can inspire your design. And as mentioned in a previous blog post, it’s not just the label that can set your beverage apart from others. It’s the container type, too.

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