CD Packaging #2

I have been playing Jon’s new CD “…if we run and run” for the last week or so, and needed to put some visuals together for discussion.

I filled quite a few pages with doodles, notes and scratchings, mulling on the lyrics, the tone of the album, and a couple of the tracks that had stood out to me. These two pages show the birth of some of the images that follow.

The first visual was to be printed black only onto recycled board, with the image of the switch heavily ‘screened’ to give a newsprint type effect. I kept coming back to the image of a switch – possibly a visual metaphor – the switch representing choices and decisions that require a human action:

The next visual was another approach to the same idea, this time focusing on a more characterful doorbell, muted colours and subtle type.  All textures printed on plain white matt stock:

The next one gets a different treatment this time. The stone can be representative of the self, lightly bound. It can be seen as a little obsessive too. Again the textures are print effects:

The last one has no central imagery this time. The image is the inside of an old plastic-covered book and suggests self-repair or maintenance. I like the idea that the songs are very intimate – what is usually kept inside becomes the outer presentation. Nice clean linear typography to elevate the design from being too grungy.

I shared these four ideas online with Jon to start a dialogue and find some common ground to develop the design on. I have another non-public blog that I use to share images of work in progress with clients which these were posted up on. The following day, I received this response from Jon:

I absolutely love the stone one. For me it represents all that I have gone through over the last few months. and the fact that it’s cut suggests, to me anyway, that a weight has been removed. I love the simplicity of it, I love the tone and the timbre, and I love the font. it’s beautiful. PLEASE LETS GO WITH THIS ONE! it has an emotional pull for me that is immediate and powerful.

Result! It’s not often it happens when you hit the nail on the head with the first strike.

The stones were shot outdoors under a leaden, overcast sky for neutral, reasonably flat lighting:

I had also created a few others to show at our next meeting, but these are resigned to the ‘designs that never were’ file:

 

 

Work is underway to create accurate artwork whilst Jon finishes compiling the lyrics, credits and tracklisting…

CD Packaging #1

I am currently working on a new CD design project for singer/songwriter Jon Lawrence. You may recall other projects I have done for Jon in recent years – click on the thumbnails below to see more of these.

  

In our initial meeting I was, as usual, given a disc to listen to whist working and we discussed a few things to establish a starting point for the design. This is a great thing about working with musicians, Jon especially so, as he brings vague notions and impressions rather than direct instructions. So, no set format, no theme, no symbolism. Except for one element; Jon mentioned that the album was much more immediate, more ‘up-front’ and raw.

We both said that the standard jewel case did not seem appropriate and recalled previous conversations about the expense of those nice brown recycled card sleeves – not so much the sleeves themselves, but more in the printing and assembly. I suggested that ready-made packs could be purchased and the whole thing could be letterpressed! We discussed this as a possibility, with a linocut design in two colours – making each sleeve a limited edition print also! Jon seemed keen, so I set about putting a couple of  visuals together to show him how this approach may look:

And I also showed a few examples of linocut carving styles:

Over the next day or so I began thinking about this and wondered if I’d been a little too enthusiastic over the letterpress approach; I was keen on the idea, but didn’t want only have this approach on the table. Plus, there were more limitations with this approach than I’d first considered.

I was sketching in my notebook whilst occupying a little ‘dead’ time and hit upon the idea of constructing the pack from a single sheet, and began exploring origami style folds, trying to make a self locking enclosure for the disc. This got stupidly complicated very quickly. I needed to simplify.

Japanese stab binding is a simple, effective and visually attractive form of binding - I have used it many times in my bookbinding projects:

 

So I began by using the general dimensions from existing card pack and digipack formats and some oddments of card and paper. In this first sample, the slot for the disc was not tight enough and it slips out too easily.

This just looks right though – the spine is very slim, but that is something that can be worked around…

And it is the same size as regular card packs.

The second test was a little better, with a snug disc slot and accurate measurements. I also tried using a thicker thread, but although this looks good, it is a bit of a pig to work with. Using the normal bookbinding thread, this simple method takes about three minutes to complete. With the thicker thread that turns into ten minutes as there is much more ‘faffing’ around trying not to sew through the thread and get the thread to lay well on each side.

I deliberately kept to a three hole/five station model to minimise production time. There are more complex and decorative versions of this technique that would be cool but impractical.

Time to get thinking about the graphics…

Getting Shirty

I bought this printing block in a rash eBay frenzy the other day. It’s not something I would generally go for but this really caught my attention.  The eBay image was not particularly sharp with a very scant write up, but there were only a few minutes to go, so ‘bing!’ and it was mine.

It arrived this morning and it wasn’t a fully carved woodblock like I thought It was, but actually metal strip inserted into a heavy wood block. Absolutely beautiful!

If I print from this block (I am unsure whether to because I don’t want to damage it) I will only hand-roll it for a soft impression. I like the patina it already has too.

The block measures approximately 19 x 23cm and the design is raised 4mm high. This doesn’t mean much until you put it into proportion with something else:

So what is it?

And for those who can’t appreciate the reversed world of the printer:

I wondered if I could trace where it came from and did a quick search for shirtings, cotton mills, chorley and found that there were quite a few. Without any other identifying marks I think this is far as I go.

Long Live the ‘Isms!’

Tonight I got the urge to print and was drawn to this 1920′s style typeface ‘Broadway Engraved’ and set up the words VIVA MODERNISM but in my haste made a bit of a typo, which needed a full manual change – no ‘control-Z’ here:

Once rectified, the satisfying repetition of a well set up press and a whole bunch of cards…

Long live modernism indeed. Look out for more ‘ isms…’

Looking for a Perfect Beach Body?

Oh yes, the easy way to that flat tum you’ve always promised yourself!

Asemic Book Launch

Ladies and Gentleman of the internet, I am proud to present my first book; “Four Fools” is an asemic novel presented in a unique written form.

The book switches between calligraphic and typographic styles, and uses a specially designed typeface that has been developed for this project, of which some of the development can be viewed here.

This black and white 38 page book also features a range of intriguing  images, both hand drawn and computer generated, which, combined with the textual compositions, provides the reader with numerous opportunities to interpret the careful juxtapositions each page presents.

This is what I hope to be the first of a tetralogy of asemic books. You can buy a copy of this book and view more sample pages here. Please leave comments…

Best Foot Forward #4

Way back in May I began to put a large(ish) two colour linocut together. The last post on that was a blind emboss just to check out the details. Now it is time to print…

The first colour was intended to be a creamy pale bluey green, but ended up a bit greyer than I had planned. Still, it had the right feel and on it went:

I intensified the colour on the image above just to show the print better. The actual colour is more like this one:

I left in a lot of ‘peaks’ in the blank spaces as I wanted this to be a very overt linoprint. I also adjusted the press to give a much lighter impression on some of the prints:

A couple of days later when these had dried I began the second colour run. Because I wasn’t working on my own press for this, I needed to get everything  prepared. Pictured below are the two lino blocks, a pile of printed sheets, spatulas, a roller, inks – rubine red, ultramarine, yellow ochre and burnt umber, as well as turps and rags. Oh yes, and some coffee; black as midnight on a moonless night.

I mixed up a rich brown for my overprint colour:

And got inked up and ready…

The first test pull was a success – I was very encouraged by the results and got straight on with the rest…

As I mentioned before, I left in a lot of ‘peaks’ and deliberately made patterns as I removed the lino. There are some nice combinations of marks as a result. I printed fifteen in total – here they are in the drying rack with the blocks…

And here they are:

I like the under-inked/low pressure prints too. The register was quite easy to set up and maintain too.

This was a really enjoyable process – right from the original drawings to this point, even though it was over a long period of time. I might have to think about some more of this type of project…