Design For Your Music
There are so many different windows of opportunity that musicians can open to fulfill their sense of creativity that it might actually become overwhelming because their freedom allows them so many different choices. Don’t let the freedoms of creativity defeat you as a daunting task. Explore what other musicians have created and create for yourself a new form of design.
Part of being a musician is knowing that creativity is a very wide window of opportunity waiting to be discovered and opened.
Some Local DIY Examples
This segment will bring you behind-the-(DIY)-scenes as I show you the creative ideas and alternative designs that my band (Great Friend of Mine) has decided to produce as our packaging for our most recent album release “desperate songs.†Please keep in mind that Great Friend of Mine is a self-releasing band, we do not have a manger or producer and we are not signed to any kind of label. All executive decision were made by the band and all expenses (which were pretty minimal!) were paid for by the band.
As this segment will show, doing things DIY allows a musician full range of motion to express their creative side and still be productive and successful. Hopefully, this illustrated process will help inspire creative ideas for musicians and offer a stepping stone for those who are eager to support the DIY community – as I know my band has been for a while!
Here are some pictures and play-by-play details that show the productivity of doing things DIY as musicians.
The Insert/Booklet
I’ll start out with the front and back cover of our booklet for our album. The actual material of the cover is a form of glossy cardstock (there are several) that you can find at any office supply store. The picture of the front and back cover are combined as one photo and was taken in our vocalist’s bedroom. The backdrop is a white bed sheet draped over a chair and some other fixtures to create a fort-like display. He used a different array of lights to produce the ambient lighting that you can observe. The figures of Jesus, Ayn Rand’s Anthem and a steady Hand-of-Mankind sculpture are in the forefront (these symbols are all referenced to in our music so that’s why he included them!). As you can see he was able to promote his innovation and it did not take much complexity – no need to get complicated!
As you will notice, our songs titles appear on the back cover as well as a large 1 with a fraction next to it. The 1 represents what issue this particular pressing is (this is our first) and the fraction represents how limited the booklet is in value. We made 150 pressings of this issue and this copy is 138th copy. By making this booklet ourselves we were able to personally hand-number the issues for a more authentic touch to demonstrate the character of our band and to provide some extra-mile TLC to show we take pride in our creativity and musicianship as a whole.
Packaging
The second feature of our packaging is the actual housing for the booklet and cd. It’s very basic; a manila shipping package that can be purchase, again, at any office supply store. This seems like an obvious step, but we then formatted our booklets so that they would fit inside the manila package and used a customized font that we found fitting as well. The way we printed our band name and album title on the manila package was by running the (empty) package through a printer and simply printing out the information on the package – as if it were a regular piece of computer paper. Novel idea, right?
As I hinted at before, creativity is very wide window waiting to be opened by musicians and artists alike. And as I have provided, there are many different ways to open a window as a band and musician who seek to create and distribute their product. My band has decided to open a certain window using our hands to craft an innovative design that suits our music and DIY lifestyle; and any musician can too if they are willing to put forth the interest!
There is more content that I’d like to display and explain in my next article as I did not cover all I wanted to cover about how we created our cd’s packaging and what the inside the booklet (introduction, lyrics, artwork and even the cd sleeve) all look like – So keep a watchful eye!
4 Comments
Steven Razorblade
on 18th Jan, 10 03:01pm
I dont know about this. Nothing at all about this is eye catching. While this is creative I feel like too little thought went into the design. You can get an ink jet printer that prints on CDs for under $100 theres no excuse for a blank CD-R with the bands name written in sharpie pen. Also the cover just flat out doesn’t grab your attention in the right way. Your eye goes straight to the hand when it should go to the bands logo.
I dont want to sound like a hater I like this blog alot. Im just being honest on this post. The overall Design could have been better with the same amount of money being spent.
I did an article on my web site about Designing CD covers. While its based on Goth and Industrial CD covers, it still applies to all musical styles. I just really feel like in todays modern music market “Eye Catchiness” is one of the most important things to have come CD release time.
http://razorbladesociety.com/home/?p=569
Zach Frimmel
on 18th Jan, 10 04:01pm
Thanks, Steven Razorblade, for your candid feedback – all is appreciated. Granted, we could have spent under $100 to print on our cds, but that was part of the budget we were willing to cut – plus, we just like to keep things simple. I do understand and share your concern for “Eye-Catchyness” but we thought our visuals effectively communicated our intentions for our expressions and for our understood audience.
Just like you mentioned, I don’t want to come off as negative, but our band’s logo is The Hand which would, in fact, mean that we effectively directed our audience’s attention to what we want. Could “Eye-Catchyness” be in the eye of the beholder?
If you or anyone else is interested in our design and means of creativity you can easily find our more about us on our Bandcamp site.
Thanks kindly for time and attention.
-Zach
gregrollett
on 18th Jan, 10 05:01pm
Hey Steven – I totally agree with you on some of the points.
For this release, it seems, Zach and his band went for a limited edition feel. The handwriting does give it the personal feel, whether it is tacky on not is not the objective here.
I think the packaging fits the “theme” of their release…”desperate songs”
The goal of this wasn’t to suggest copying the design, but more to open up to new forms of getting your material out there. Stop thinking in terms of CD’s in jewel cases, etc. While that business is still going to be great for some bands, doing a limited release in special packaging will get your “super fans” to pony up some cash that adds to your bottom line.
Thanks for chiming in. Hopefully we can hear from Zach more about the “why” and the results with this type of packaging.
Mojo Bone
on 21st Jan, 10 04:01pm
I’m willing to reserve further comment until I’ve seen the rest of the packaging, but I think that unless the font on the CD matches that on the outside of the manila envelope, the intended theme of “desperate songs” could easily be mistaken for “desperate band”.