Good news everybody! Oktoberfest is nearly upon us, with the ceremonial tapping of the first barrel set to take place on September 19 in Munich.

And what's the best way to celebrate Oktoberfest? By looking at beautifully designed craft beer labels of course! (Okay, so maybe not the BEST way, but certainly a good start...)

Brilliant beer packaging design focuses on the relationship with illustrations and text. Since many breweries have a lot of history, beer labels seem to have more detail and descriptive type than other forms of packaging.

You also need to find space to list the ingredients, so a good eye for text-heavy design is essential to ensure it doesn't look boring. Here's five of our current favorites...

Ballistic Brewing

• The colored bottle caps – a small detail like this can make a big impact on the overall design.
• Intricate background details of different patterns, which creates a feel of historical weight and gives a nice sense of the beer's personality, and who it may appeal to.
• Using a monochrome palette (and being printed on card), the intricate image stands out, making the design clean and to the point.

Copper Kettle Brewing Co.

• Most beer labels focus on intricate details, and this is a perfect example of this.
• The intricate illustrations and typography reflect the heritage of the beer and include special ingredients.
• The Emrich designers created printed copper color as a nod to the brewery's name, which is a great way to approach color in this design. This is contrasted with strong primary colors, which looks gorgeous.

Calypso Pale Ale

• Focusing on a modern, bold label but intertwining it with Greek mythology makes this design successful.
• The label is modern and bold, and clearly careful thought was given to placement, with negative space, grid layout and color all working together perfectly.
• Best of all, this design was part of a DesignCrowd contest that ultimately was won by another design. So if you need a fantastic logo for your craft beer, head over to designer 88 creaction's page and snatch it up!

O/O Brewing S/S 2015

• This label is organized on a grid layout, with the focal point being an illustration created by artists and designers who were asked "to interpret the beer".
• The text and illustration is evenly spread out through imaginary margins.
• Having the text in a crisp, sans-serif font allows the focal point to be of the graphic.

Steel and Oak Brewing Co.

• Vastly different from the typical packaging of a beer, featuring the bare minimum of detail and information.
• Focuses on minimalistic typography, giving it a bold, modern, clean look.

Want More?

Love a good round-up as much as we do? Have a look at these great themed design posts:

Wine logos - 5 famous wine logos and labels

Best Beer Logo Maker

10 DesignCrowd Movie Posters That Make Us Grab the Popcorn

DesignCrowd's Top 10 Logos You Could've Bought Instead of Your Xbox

Written by Divya Abe on Friday, September 18, 2015

Divya Abe is an expert graphic designer ready to share her knowledge with the crowd. Besides spending quality time on the internet she enjoys anything to do with cats. Get in touch via Google+.