The craft brew market is growing, which is great news for the industry. Individual brewers are seeing more competition for the same consumers, so it’s up to each brewer to find a way to stand out from the masses. You know your beer is the best, but until consumers buy it, they don’t. How do you get the customer to choose your brew? Custom bottle labels.
Craft beer labeling matters almost as much as the beer’s taste. Customers have to notice your brand so they can find out just how fantastic it tastes. Maybe your labels just don’t pop. Maybe they’re looking for your beer, but they can’t remember what the labels look like. Either way, crafting a solid impression is just as important as crafting the beer itself.
Take a look at some of these custom bottle labels from Century Label. You’ll never forget them, right? What gives something like the Great North Aleworks or Sun King Brewing labels such an edge?
Color Me Surprised
Turns out, there’s a lot of science behind why customers prefer one brand design over another. Color, texture, typeface, and material all influence buyers’ choices. Did you know that 90 percent of judgments about a product are made because of color alone?
Color selection and design need to be based on the personality of your brand. Is your craft brew a down-to-earth, average Joe’s choice? Go with an earthy brown, basic bottle. There’s an entire psychology behind color theory and its impact on marketing. There’s a lot of debate about how much, say, yellow affects someone’s mood.
One thing that’s certain…
Colors provide associations your customers may not be aware of.
Sometimes, it’s best to let your product do the talking. If you’re bottling your drinks in clear glass, for example, you need to design your label in a way that highlights the drink itself. This includes matching the colors of your drink to the label.
Century Label’s custom bottle labels for Sun King are good examples of this strategy. The combination of vibrant, warm colors works really well for a standout, high-energy brand. Take a look at the colors. That orange and blue combination is a classic of color theory. The strategy here is using complementary colors – colors on the opposite sides of the color wheel from each other – to make the product bright and sharp. You can also use a monochromatic design, with one color in different shades, and triple color schemes for different effects. That’s the advantage of custom bottle labels – they really arecustom.
Crafting Memories
The size of the market means you can’t afford to have a generic label design. Your beer needs a custom bottle label that people will remember. You need to consider all aspects of your container, product, and even the sales environment. Buyers will have trouble recognizing your product’s name if the text on your bottle is too small or unclear. And while a reflective, metallic texture will certainly catch the eye, it also may be difficult to read if you don’t make accommodations for lighting.
The drink’s container also has an impact on your labeling. A bottled drink offers less design space than a canned package. Century Label’s Wolf Pack design is an innovative solution: Some bottles are made from aluminum, which, in addition to other advantages, turns the entire bottle into a canvas. This solution means the beer has a consistency in its design – even across containers and materials.
There is no universal rule for good bottle label design. Branding your beer comes naturally, and you know yourself and the product better than anybody. Choose the custom bottle label that works best for your drink’s identity.
For a no-obligation, confidential initial custom bottle label consultation with one of our design experts, click here.
