You always have to match your wine label or beer label size to the bottle or can it will be going on. There’s no better way to really jack-up your packaging than to slap a label on that doesn’t properly fit, so make sure you always design your label to fit the container.
It’s one of the most important things to do, but is commonly overlooked. Over and over again we see customers create something they love and have huge disappointment when they can’t use it on the container they’ve already purchased. You have to know what size and shape the bottle or can is before you begin designing a label, so you can make sure your label will fit on the flat surface of the bottle.
Of course the label can always be small compared to the container… this is a common design choice, and can actually make something look more important or “precious” when it’s surrounded by open space. But our main concern here is making sure the label is not too big. So before any label printing, make sure it actually fits.
Although it seems like labels, or paper products in general, are flimsy malleable things, you have to remember they only want to bend in one direction at a time. It’s easy for the label to curve it’s way around the bottle, but as soon as you force it to turn in a different additional direction, like the sloped curve of a bottle neck, it will crinkle and warp creating ripples that make your package look awful.
If you have a tall Bordeaux wine bottle with straight sides, you have a huge amount of choices for the label size and shape. But if it’s a Burgundy wine bottle with long curved shoulders, or a short fat beer bottle, you’ll be much more limited in the height of the label. If you’re going to be using a mixture of bottles (either due to varietals requiring different bottles, or using recycled bottles for example), there are 2 easy solutions; you can design one label to the smallest dimension so it will fit on everything, or create a design that works on multiple size labels so it works with all the different size bottles and cans.
Optional – 
Below is a guide for figuring out what the maximum height your wine label or beer label can be.
- Put a straight edge ruler up to the side of the container.
- Measure the size of the straight wall of the container, where any curves start and stop.
- Subtract an appropriate amount to provide some wiggle room for application of the label. This will depend on your comfort level and how accurately you can apply the label to the container.
So in the example below, the distance from curve to curve is approximately 6 inches, so I subtract 1/2” to give me 1/4” margin for error on the top and the bottom. This gives me 5.5” for the maximum height I can comfortably make
my label.
