wine label creation

hey all is there an online tool, application, app, etc that people use for designing a wine label?

Not that I know of. Try and get your hands on a copy of photo shop if you can or a Mac.
Unless you have done graphics before I would find someone to work with that will trade for wine.

Designing a wine label by yourself is like cutting your own hair. It sounds simple, but can end up horribly bad.

If you have a copy of Illustrator and don’t mind learning some new skills, that is how I make all my homebrew labels.

I know this tutorial is for beer, but it teaches you some Illustrator skillz that may help you design your label:-

Best of luck!

What kind of design? A logo? The rest is just Fonts and sized text, and if your big time, regulations. I always felt that a label should be good on promotion items: T-shirts, hats… Ravenswood comes to mind.

Tim - assuming this is a label for a commercial wine based on your other post? If so I would work with a graphic artist that has experience with wine labels - especially for a new brand. They can provide initial ideation for the label or build on your design, wording that will be acceptable for COLA approval by the TTB, etc. They often have vendors they can recommend for glass, corks, capsules and printers for the labels.

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Great idea…I am relatively software savvy, so I think I can learn enough for the label design. But, point

Yes. Based on other posts, I think I need some help with logo design. I’ve read the TTB guidelines, they seem easy to follow, or am I just being way too optimistic ?

As long as you are staying with the basics you should be able to handle TTB filing. (Keep in mind that label approval is often based on the TTB person you are working with on that day and their interpretation of the rules.)

Thanks Karen. I’m going to give it a go on my own…but had an idea to post the project to local art/graphic design colleges to see if a student would be interested

+1 to the advice to get a graphic artist, preferably one with label experience. Even if you are very artistic, or have a great idea what you want, the printing process, colors, printing registration, choice of papers and what can be done on each one, etc is all specialized knowledge. You may come up with a design that is impossible (or VERY expensive) to reproduce on a label.

You could try contacting Tapp or another label printer for help, but I’ve found they don’t have a lot of time for small run customers. They’ll do the work, but not give you much help.

If you don’t believe the truth of this go to the super market and flip around 20-30 bottles. See how some bottles have a solid line between the romance and the government warning and some do not? If you have to put the line there is totally dependent on who gets assigned to your label at ttb. I had 15 or so approved without the line, then 3 rejected because of no line, made the change and later missed putting the line in on one and that was approved. One or more ttb people think you need a line, the rest don’t. That kind of stuff will drive you nuts doing it on your own.

Is your label going to have to sell the bottle off the retail shelf, or do you just want to impress your friends at dinner.

If the former get a professional to work with you.