https://www.mcclabeldirect.com/blog/post/where-to-get-your-wine-label-ideas
MCC label printers has included an interview with me in a recent blog post of theirs.
They are an excellent printer and I highly recommend them.
Since the law in 2005 no one can call their wines one of their safeguarded regional “place” names. These are: Burgundy, Chablis, Champagne, Chianti, Claret, Haut-Sauterne, Hock, Madeira, Malaga, Marsala, Moselle, Port, Retsina, Rhine, Sauterne, Sherry and Tokay. The only wineries allowed to still use these names is if they were using it prior to the law and have been grandfathered in. (Also, before you ask, according to the TTB, you still cannot use the place names even if you are buying it from someone who has the name grandfathered in.)
Many place names have easy workarounds, such as Sparkling Wine for Champagne. But the one that is the biggest hiccup for wineries is an alternative name to Port. Some simply call it “Dessert Wine” on the label, but this to me, as a consumer, is troublesome. I am not all that fond of Port but love dessert wine. Port is fortified wine, which means they’ve used an alcohol additive such as brandy. Dessert wine doesn’t use an alcohol additive but instead lets the natural sugars ferment by leaving the grapes on the vine longer.
After doing much research into alternate names for Port, the one that my clients have found the most success with is “Forté.” It’s close enough to the word Port, and more elegant that Forte.
Some have been approved using these two names below, while others have not:
Some wineries use names such as: Fort, and “WSA,” which refers to “wine spirits additions,” “USB” (ports), “Not Starboard” (Starboard alone is trademarked already), Seriously crafted dessert wine.
The TTB firmly states that you cannot use any form the the four letters PORT in sequence, anywhere on the label, front or back. However, I often run across port in wineries where they clearly print the words port, but fluff it a bit, like in “Portly” even though they aren’t grandfathered in to use it. I ask how they got approved but they just answer, “depends on who approves the application”. It just makes me wonder if they legally filed the label. I would love to hear your comments or experiences using the word Port on your label or other clever names.
To be sure you will be using a top notch graphic designer who has many years of experience, knows the rules of printing, and keeps up with the modern trends, please contact me at ginny@westcottdesign.com or click this link. Check out my designs here. I include testimonial pages where my clients express their experiences working with me. I offer unique designs to get your product label, brochures, and ads looking professional and sell. I design personally with you on each project so you get 25+ years experience behind each creation. I strive to save you money in the design process, using stock images and manipulating stock illustrations when the budget calls for it. I can guide you through the TTB approval process for your label and help find the right printer for your project. My design studio is located right in the heart of wine country, in Glen Ellen, Sonoma County, Northern California.
You can save some money by designing your own wine label, but be sure to hire a professional designer to actually create the final.
If you already have a label or logo design in mind, you can draw up a rough sketch or maybe describe it in words and give that to your designer. Some people try to save money by designing their own label on their computer, using programs that are not made for a finished design, like the word of them all, Microsoft Word. All these are just fine for a designer to start with and can save you money by reducing rounds of concept designs.
Not everyone has a design in mind, but if you do, it is never a good idea to require the designer use your exact fonts you used that came supplied on your computer and the exact placement of the artwork without any tweaks, thinking you’ll be saving yourself some money. Surprisingly, this will NOT save you money. The reason being, the designer has to balance their design sense with a font they would never have chosen and art that is not the right style, thus taking longer to make it look professional and balanced. Your layout should be really be used as a guideline only.
The above graphic is an example of before and after. In the beginning, my client, Rio Claro Wines, sent me the sketch on the left. Without having to go back to the drawing board, since he liked his initial design, I kept their main idea intact. Making it look warmer, sleeker, and more inviting to the consumer was far easier than if they required me to use their exact fonts and exact design and just make it look better. I was able to use the pencil drawing the owner sketched of his vineyard, apply some filters and switched out their busy
I was able to use the pencil drawing the owner sketched of his vineyard, apply some filters and switched out their busy clipart wine with hearts for a simplified version of stock art that didn’t clutter up their label but still got the vision across. When finished, not only did I supply them with their labels, but also their new logo in a variety of formats, that they could use however they pleased.
To be sure you will be using a top notch graphic designer who has many years of experience, knows the rules of printing, and keeps up with the modern trends, please contact me at ginny@westcottdesign.com or click this link. Check out my designs here. I include testimonial pages where my clients express their experiences working with me. I offer unique designs to get your product label, brochures, and ads looking professional and sell. I design personally with you on each project so you get 25+ years experience behind each creation. Striving to save you money in the design process, I use stock images and manipulate stock illustrations when the budget calls for it. I can guide you through the TTB approval process for your label and help find the right printer for your project. My design studio is located right in the heart of wine country, in Glen Ellen, Sonoma County, Northern California.
“HELP! My logo gets blurry when I make it bigger.”
If you decide to design your own logo, do not design it in Microsoft Word or in a bitmap format such as a .png or .jpg. If you enlarge your logo, it will get fuzzy, rough and pixilated. You will need your final logo in a vector format that can stretch as large as a billboard and still look great. Adobe Illustrator (.ai) and Corel draw are programs that do this. A .svg .eps and .pdf are great as long as the original format came from in vector art and not an imported bitmapped (raster) images such a jpg. See the example above.
One thing to keep in mind is that most screen resolutions have 72 dpi (dots per inch) and high def monitors have 150 or so dpi. But we’ll focus on the more common 72 dpi here. In printing, they use 300 dpi. This means that the inch on your screen of 72 little dots will shrink down so that 300 dots can fit in the same inch space. Your artwork will become less than a quarter of the size than what you see on your screen. When this happens, people tend to just print it at a larger percentage. That means that those 72 little dots are now expanded to fit in the space that should hold 300 dots. Each of the 72 dots will become BIG About 4 times the size of a tiny print dot. And your printed artwork will look rough and jagged.
When you design on your computer’s screen, you’ll need to make sure you have the dpi set to 300 or above so it will print with the clarity you see on your screen. I am talking about raster (bitmap) images, like photos that have the extension .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .png, . tif, .tiff, or .bmp, at the end. It is very important to change your dpi to 300 or above if you ever plan to print.
The other format is vector and use the extensions: .ai, .eps, svg, .dxf, and .pdf (if the native file is vector). Vector formats do not consist of tiny dots per inch. What you see on your screen are mathematical formulas that can expand your logo as large as you want, without getting rough and jagged. For this reason, your logo should be created in a vector program or you will be stuck with a blurry logo when you try to enlarge it. I refer you to the above image again.
Many people who aren’t designers find it difficult to work in a vector program. Most of them are fairly expensive and tedious to learn with too many complicated options they don’t need. Most professional designers use Adobe Illustrator and a few might use Corel Draw. If you want to design your own logo, have a designer transfer it into vector format for the final version. They can add professional tweaks, then save it out in a variety of formats for screen and print. Or better yet, get a quote for additional ideas and you might be blown away.
To be sure you will be using a top notch graphic designer who has many years of experience, knows the rules of printing, and keeps up with the modern trends, please contact me at ginny@westcottdesign.com or click this link. Check out my designs here. I include testimonial pages where my clients express their experiences working with me. I offer unique designs to get your product label, logo, brochures, and ads looking professional and sell. I design personally with you on each project so you get 25+ years experience behind each creation. I strive to save you money in the design process, using stock images and manipulating stock illustrations when the budget calls for it. I can guide you through the TTB approval process for your label and help find the right printer for your project. My design studio is located right in the heart of wine country, in Glen Ellen, Sonoma County, Northern California.
