Size a beer label to the flat part of the bottle, and set the required text at the size your regulator specifies. Those are the two things that most often trip up a first beer label.
Measure the flat, not the face
A bottle curves away from you, and a label wrapped past that curve wrinkles at the edges. Measure the part that's truly flat, before the glass starts to turn, and leave a margin inside it.
Then send us that label size with your artwork. Some suppliers call their drawing of it a dieline. How to measure a jar or bottle for a label walks through the measuring, and it's a far better route than ordering a size and finding out.
Required text
Set the government warning and the ABV at the size your regulator specifies, and send them at that size instead of shrinking them to fit. Keep all type at 6 pt or larger, or 8 pt for thin (light or script) fonts. Your proof shows how the text lands before anything prints. Compliance text on small labels has more.
Keep it clear of the edge
Keep anything that must survive inside the safe area: 0.09" inside the cut on sheet labels, and 1/8" on roll labels. On a label, the text that gets trimmed is almost always the smallest required text, because that's what gets pushed to the margin when space runs out. See bleed and safe area.
Front, back, and neck
Each label is its own design with its own minimum: 25 of a design on sheet labels, and 100 on roll labels. So a small run of neck labels beside a bigger run of fronts is normal, and a seasonal batch doesn't need a huge order.
Roll or sheet
- Filling and labeling by hand in batches: choose sheet labels, from 25 of a design. They ship 3 to 5 business days after you approve the proof.
- Running an applicator, or labeling hundreds at a time: choose Custom Roll Labels, from 100 of a design. They ship 5 to 7 business days after approval. Every roll is wound on a 3" core, so check that your machine takes one, and tell us the unwind direction its manual shows before you order.
If you're between the two, tell us your batch size and how you apply the labels, and we'll tell you which suits. Roll labels explained covers rolls in more depth, and beer label materials covers bottles that sit in ice.