DIY Album Design Park 3

Posted on 29 January 2010 by gregrollett

Over the past 2 weeks we have been talking a lot about packaging and album design. Zach has written two pieces on the way his indie punk band has created a home-made limited edition feel to their latest release. (Part 1 and Part 2).

Today I wanted to showcase 2 hip-hop groups that are doing some really innovative ways of presenting their albums. First I wanted to discuss some reasons why this is a smart move in today’s music economy.

Music is losing its value to the group that has the largest amount of disposable income – the 12-24 market. This age group is more than just tech savvy, they are the group that is developing the technology to find music on demand and have the best way to share music with a group of peers – school!

The artists that are making money in this demogrpahic are the ones that can bring more value than these fans can find for free on the net. Even if this is not your target market, this makes sense. Everyone is moving online to find information and when you boil down to it, music is nothing more than information when it is online. You search for it, you find it and you use it (listen to it). In order to make a fan, or a prospective fan, take the next step is to offer more value than they can get in a Google, Grooveshark or iTunes search.

The Uzi USB

This one made headlines at the end of 2009 when the West Coast super group Get Busy Committee released their debut album, “Uzi Does It” on USB Thumb Drives in the shape of an uzi – yes that kind of uzi. They printed a 1st run of 1,200 and they were gone within the month. Here is a quick video that showcases the way they packaged their music:

The Get Busy Committee wasn’t even a group a few months ago and now are on the lips of many hip-hop blogs, record label lists and marketing sites as a group to recon with in 2010. Fans have taken to the USB stick by throwing up photos, sharing on Twitter and making super fans of this group.

Check out the GBC store for more ideas on both “for sale” and “free” items that will no doubt fuel the new music economy.

The Stimulus Package

Philly MC Freeway has teamed up with producer Jake One for a new Rhymesayers release dubbed, The Stimulus Package due on February 16th, 2010. Going right into theme, the design, created by Brent Rollins, showcases some much needed funds to pump into fans speakers, iPods and stereos.

According to the Rhymesayers blog the artwork:

includes four Freeway bills, four Jake One bills, with lyrics and liner notes on the back, a wallet to stuff them into, and a free download card to grab the instrumentals.

This is some really cool value for fans of the former Rocafella / State Property MC and veteran G-Unit producer. This goes way beyond your traditional CD packaging and is something to show off to your friends and keep in a nice safe place (so you don’t get jacked for your Freeway dollars).

To make this even more interesting and tied to the theme, on the direct to fan, in-house Rhymesayers store, 5th Element, all pre-orders are eligible for:

  • Entry into a drawing for 1 of 5 $100 CASH prizes!
  • A Fifth Element Stimulus Check signed by Freeway & Jake One, your check will be good for 15% off a future purchase online.
  • Both The Beat Made Me Do It mixtape & Freelapse mixtape.
  • Instant digital download of the leaked track You Know What I Mean 320 kbps. In the download you will get the explicit, edited and instrumental version of the song.

You get all that for only $12.99 CD and $14.99 for the LP.

I get really excited when artists, and even labels are able to go outside the norm and do something special for the fans. Fans make the music business go round.

Let’s keep this conversation on album design going. What do you think of these 2 releases? How can you take a concept and run outside the box with it and deliver more value than a Google search can for your band?

-Greg Rollett

Local DIY Album Design

Posted on 18 January 2010 by zach

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!