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Alan D Group: Members Posts: 3670 Joined: Aug. 2004 Posted: April 15 2006, 11:05 Not sure where to put this, so Admins please divert it to wherever you think best. There's been a lot of discussion about the effect on sleeve artwork associated with the transition from vinyl to CD, and I just want to talk about that a bit. I recently decided that, after all, I need a complete set of Wagner's Ring cycle. (I'd jettisoned my two complete LP sets many years ago, along with all my other vinyl, and never replaced them but was content with CDs of highlights instead.) After much heart-searching (it's a substantial financial decision to take) the new set dropped through my letter box this morning - an astonishing observation in itself. The 14 CD set of Boehm's version of The Ring is so small that it can fit through my letter box. Compare that with the massive old LP boxed sets - they must have caused many a postman to pull a muscle or two, and they were monstrous beasts to store. Anyway, I was impressed by the compactness. Then I opened the box. And inside it was the most miserably pathetic excuse for a booklet you could imagine. Printed on wafer-thin paper with quite an unpleasantly claustrophic layout to each page, it's simply horrible to read. The translation of the synopsis is appalling (a full libretto isn't provided - why not?); the pictures are tiny and poor to the point of being pointless. (They have no captions, so there's no way of knowing who or what they represent.) By contrast, my old Boehm Ring set on LP came with sumptuous booklets with full librettos, superb pictures, and well-designed layout. They were an essential part of the value of the set. Now.... the improvement in sound quality is tremendous. So why does the presentation have to be so naff? There's no basic reason why CDs can't be made into interesting objects. Look at some of Diane Arkenstone's CDs, with their fold-out covers that always give pleasure when they're opened; or Alanis Morrissette's 'Singles Box' which opens like a mysterious hoard of treasure; or for a more recent example, look at Kate Bush's Aerial which is a highly creative approach to CD presentation. I don't believe that size is the cause of the problem: a work of art can be equally satisfying whether large or small, and there's no reason at all why the small size of CDs means the artwork has to be poor. So why is it, almost always, rubbish? Ladies and gentlemen: I'd love to know your thoughts on such matters. Back to top

Inkanta Group: Admins Posts: 1453 Joined: Feb. 2000 Posted: April 15 2006, 12:22 Hi Alan, Yet another interesting topic! IMHO it is well-placed right here in the G.D. I don't think the problem is with size, either. Maybe it is a combination of things--that the companies get so focused on sound quality that they forget about presentation. Maybe they see it as a cost-savings measure, figuring that consumers are going to buy primarily for the quality of the music. They (we) might grumble a bit over the packaging, but oh well....until our discontent leads to market loss, they're not going to care. They'd not attribute lost revenue to substandard presentation anyway with so many other possibilities from which to choose. And yet, as you say, some items are still exquisitely presented. I haven't seen any of the CDs that you mention, but in that they are well done, I bet that the musicians have been involved and very insistent on quality. I have a couple of other examples, e.g., Tag und Nacht with its simple, elegant design and booklet. The pictures were bascially of Christopher (? think, anyway) taken here and there. Peter Gabriel also includes interesting artwork with his CDs. With OVO, one could obtain a booklet besides what came with the CD, and I did. The Story of Ovo was presented in graphic novel format, when graphic novels were just getting started--maybe even before. Cutting edge as always, that guy! Maybe it is a combination of the greediness/wham-bamm-get-it-to-market-man focus of the record companies which goes unchecked by most musicians. Surely the proto-product is run by them before the package is released. But...what are the company reps telling them if they question? "Well....we could do this, but it will delay production by 4 months, which means it won't be out in time for your tour"; or, "Those changes will increase production costs by x%. It will have to come out of your share." Or, maybe the musicians don't know how bad it will be until it hits the shelves, either. Maybe someone associated with the industry could speak to this. I guess one message we need to communicate is:  Art Matters (or cover art, CD art, presentation art, whatever you want to call it). -------------- "No such thing as destiny; only choices exist." From:  Moongarden's "Solaris." Back to top

Alan D Group: Members Posts: 3670 Joined: Aug. 2004 Posted: April 15 2006, 13:57 Quote (Inkanta @ April 15 2006, 17:22) maybe the musicians don't know how bad it will be until it hits the shelves, either. I think there might be something in this, actually. In the world of publishing, even if there's no money involved, it can sometimes be the devil of a job for the writer to get to check the proofs in order to suggest changes to the final layout, and I wonder if it's something to do with the extreme fragmentation of the processing of a 'product'. So - by the time the finished (or almost finished) object is ready, there are dozens of links in the chain back to the artist, and any changes he might suggest would involve so much complexity that the opportunity simply isn't offered to him. So, for instance, in the case of my naff Ring booklet, you only need one clown to order the wrong kind of cheap and nasty paper, and another in a different office to forget to add captions to the pictures .... and you're on the slippery slope, aren't you? The decisions have been taken, and the momentum of the production process does the rest. Maybe? Back to top

Sir Mustapha Group: Musicians Posts: 2802 Joined: April 2003 Posted: April 15 2006, 15:25 What I can say, when CD's just came out, the booklet art was... well, inexistant. There was the cover, the back cover, some plain black-on-white credits (maybe), and long explanations on the indestructible (!! quality of compact discs, etc.. And, of course, the CD itself wasn't personalised. I have a 2nd hand issue of "Oxygéne" here that's pretty much like that. It took some time until CD art was interesting to look at - but still less fun than LP's, in my opinion. Funny is that the same happened with LP's. For a long time, the covers were pretty bland, and the back cover had long texts and reviews on the artist in question, and even advertisement for other albums. It took a long time until high quality art came out, in the 60's. It's a natural phenomenon, I believe. With CD's, I guess the artists themselves had little or no control on how the record companies would re-issue their albums, so they came out like that. To me, it seems like the size of the booklet isn't very good motivation for the making of great art, and the production cheapness increases that. I dunno, I'm making a wild guess. Or maybe, the more the years go by, the more the record companies take us for granted... -------------- Check out http://ferniecanto.com.br for all my music, including my latest albums: Don't Stay in the City, Making Amends and Builders of Worlds. Also check my Bandcamp page: http://ferniecanto.bandcamp.com Back to top

The Big BellEnd Group: Members Posts: 971 Joined: Jan. 2004 Posted: April 15 2006, 16:02 it's time for retro, CD's in old album style cover's, bollock's to storage let's have something to get hold of, a cover the size of a child's story book, as indeed they where, artistic of course' and with lovely large print so one can actually read the notes without the use of a powerfull microscope. -------------- I, ON THE OTHER HAND. AM A VICTIM OF YOUR CARNIVOUROUS LUNAR ACTIVITY. Back to top

Inkanta Group: Admins Posts: 1453 Joined: Feb. 2000 Posted: April 15 2006, 17:33 I think that you can have lovely and creative artwork in CD-size dimensions; even smaller. I was thinking of the Miniature Book Society at http://www.mbs.org/ and their exhibitions and competitions that they have from time-to-time. Miniature books are generally under 3 or 4 inches and tend to be very creatively designed. Heh, I wondered if there was any such thing as CD art competitions....which led me to a site I've visited in the past for far different reasons (involving copyright), DeviantArt. http://news.deviantart.com/article/20425/. You might find the approach Oculus is taking to be interesting. Very interesting. TBBE--I hear what you're saying about microscopic text, though. Several years ago upon receipt of a CD (think it was the Ladder), I was lambasting the company (in my head) wondering why they were making the print so tiny. WTF????? Turns out it wasn't that they were making the print so tiny, but that my eyes were changing. It just happened that was the first experience. But not the last. Actually, at work on Friday because I had carried home my last pair of reading glasses and didn't have any in my purse, I had to go out and buy a pair so I could see to do my job.  But....even if they're not making CD covers the size of a picture book, just *maybe* the companies could put the print in something larger than 4-point or whatever microscopic font they tend to use. -------------- "No such thing as destiny; only choices exist." From:  Moongarden's "Solaris." Back to top

Marky Group: Members Posts: 390 Joined: Sep. 2005 Posted: April 15 2006, 17:54 We really need a designer or printer to add some professional comments here, as I know when I commission work from them they always have an excuse for what comes back! Having said that, I have seen many very impressive CD inlays and covers and so it can be done, and the bottom line here is whether they want to spend the money and put in the effort. If your artwork was originally designed for an LP on vinyl, then chances are it transfers less well to CD simply because the dimensions and paper differ. But with modern work I think the concept of any artwork and presentation is likely to be bespoke for CD. A problem for CDs is that, like DVDs, they go backwards to pick up products that pre-exist them, such as Wagner's Ring Cycle, and for these, it may not be cost effective to "re-master" (to borrow a musical expression) the original artwork so that it is impressive within a CD booklet. There will be, after all, a minimal income stream as the product is not new and probably gets no additional promotion budget either. By contrast, any music recorded and released since 1985 (or whenever CDs were the dominant medium for music) will probably have a budget and all its art and design can be bespoke to the format. What Wagner needs to do, therefore, is simply take a leaf out of Mike's book and record The Ring Cycle II. Back to top

lostrom Group: Members Posts: 53 Joined: Feb. 2006 Posted: April 15 2006, 19:13 Money as more important then art - I'm sorry, but that's the way mankind is, generally speaking. In the long run, this is of course bullshit, but since when does mankind think about more then he can piss..... Back to top

Sysiyo Group: Members Posts: 245 Joined: Feb. 2003 Posted: April 16 2006, 03:32 Very good topic. In general I've observed that the artwork quiality tends to be much better on original issues (Alan D mentioned Aerial, I could name a dozen more), where the artist has probably been involved in some degree... where the results get poor are the reissues. Especially when a larger section of an artists' work is reissued as a series, the CD booklets are forced in the same format, with a similar font, layout and sometimes even colours for all albums, regardless of how they match with the style of the original artworks. Good examples of this are the 1999 David Bowie Series reissues of, well, David Bowie, Jethro Tull's cd reissues with bonus tracks, Sony's reissues of Philip Glass' works, and of couse Virgin's HDCD reissues of Mike's back catalogue. What made each album originally stylistically unique is sacrificed in the name of unity of the reissue series (the most annoying one being the Glass reissues, where every piece has even an identical cover). Back to top

Deadcalm Group: Awaiting Authorisation Posts: 752 Joined: Nov. 2004 Posted: April 19 2006, 03:36 Quote (The Big BellEnd @ April 15 2006, 16:02) it's time for retro, CD's in old album style cover's, bollock's to storage let's have something to get hold of, a cover the size of a child's story book, as indeed they where, artistic of course' and with lovely large print so one can actually read the notes without the use of a powerfull microscope. I Agree !!! A ALBUM size Cover with a cute cd centre with readable Lyrics and great art work  sod the Storage Yess Agree Strongly !!! Back to top

Alan D Group: Members Posts: 3670 Joined: Aug. 2004 Posted: April 21 2006, 04:57 Quote (Inkanta @ April 15 2006, 22:33) I think that you can have lovely and creative artwork in CD-size dimensions; even smaller. I agree entirely with this. The scale is not a problem. The only reason it seems to be a problem is because almost all CD art & design is terrible, and the font employed is nearly always too small for comfortable reading. But these are design issues that can be accommodated - not quality limitations that have to be accepted. I thought I'd offer a few examples of how it could be, given just a bit of thought and care, and sensitivity to the visual and tactile impact of these things. First, here's Kate Bush's Aerial, for those who haven't seen it - one of the most innovative CD packages I've seen, and which offers a really clear direction in which things could go, given the will to do it: Aerial Or, less ambitious, but still an object of great pleasure to look at and handle, is this Arkenstone production (the music not quite living up to its packaging in this case, I'm sorry to say). But look at the way they've used a sensible font size, and so interestingly, too. And if they'd needed to write more, a booklet could have been tucked into one of the side flaps as it does so effectively in Kate Bush's Aerial. Arkenstone And finally... well here's one of those 'I can dream' examples. This is a Taiwanese Alanis Morissette promo, and I know it would be too delicate for a general commercial release, but my goodness it's one of the loveliest things ever to contain a CD. The whole thing is folded over itself and held together by a transparent acetate loop, printed with a silkscreen image of a butterfly, like this: Morissette promo closed With the loop in place, it looks as if there's a butterfly resting on her hair. When you slip off the loop, the package concertinas out as light and delicate as the butterfly (which is such a visual feature of the package throughout), like this: Morissette promo opened You have to handle it to sense the full quality of the design - so light and airy and delicate - a simply beautiful concept. And OK, I know it's not practical. But these things show very clearly that the CD format is not in any sense a limitation to the quality of the design and artwork that can be used. I would love to have seen Mike releasing some first-rate CD art objects like this - and honestly, there can't be any serious reason why he (or anyone else) couldn't have done it. The total additional cost - in the context of the whole - can't be so significant, can it? Back to top

Moz Group: Musicians Posts: 600 Joined: July 2005 Posted: April 21 2006, 13:36 I haven't read all of the responses yet, but I wanted to add some thoughts. Last November, I released my first album of original music.  My wife did a 12-page booklet for the album.  She took photos and did the layout.  I wrote the words.  We may not be making a lot of these (only 25 have been made so far) but we wouldn't dream of not taking time to review the final product.  For instance, my wife re-typed my words for the booklet, and I proof-read it.  I found lots of typos so I'm glad I checked it. I can actually relate this process to my current job.  I work in IT and we regularly work through a software development process in order to get changes made to our computer systems.  Typically, the business will ask for changes to be made, and we schedule them in.  However, we don't just take them away, make our own interpretations, and do the work.  We constantly go back to the business - our customer - to review our list of requirements against what they've asked for.  If we didn't do this (and bear in mind that we haven't always done it this way) then we'd almost certainly miss something along the way.  Something that wasn't specified by the business.  Something we misinterpreted. I think that there is no excuse for not being able to review things.  If the process doesn't allow it then the process needs to be reviewed!  From self-producing an album, we've learned that it does take time BUT you have to make time to do it properly.  If you're driven only by timescales, e.g. it must be done in one month, then you'll sacrifice quality.  There are a lot of companies who fail to appreciate this. What often happens is that the execs demand something by a given date, and the people doing the work either cram it in and mess it up, or just don't get it done on time.  All that needs to happen is for people to be up front about the risk of rushing things.  e.g. We think this will take two months to do properly, so if you force us to do it in one month then we can't guarantee it will be done to the highest standard.  and we won't be able to do this, this or this. This also relates to accountability.  The writer of the sleeve notes is putting their name to the content, so it's in their best interests to get hold of an early draft, or a final proof.  If they can't get one, do they really want to write something that might end up being edited or retyped (possibly full of mistakes) without their knowing?  Similarly, if the musician doesn't get to approve the CD before it goes to market, shouldn't they be the ones to do something about it? If you just do your bit then throw it over the fence to the next person in the chain, it's not that person's fault if they get it wrong - it's yours.  People need to talk more about these things and work together so everyone is on the same page, and we're all happy with the final product. -------------- Twitter: @benbarden Back to top

The Big BellEnd Group: Members Posts: 971 Joined: Jan. 2004 Posted: April 21 2006, 13:42 I think the outright classic case against the idea of the miniturisation of cover's and art work has to go to the album that is the musical version of The War Of The World's by Jeff Wayne. The original album was/is a masterpiece in not least the sheer amount of effort put into a final product that is as much a story in art as much as it is in sound. -------------- I, ON THE OTHER HAND. AM A VICTIM OF YOUR CARNIVOUROUS LUNAR ACTIVITY. Back to top

Alan D Group: Members Posts: 3670 Joined: Aug. 2004 Posted: April 21 2006, 16:07 Quote (Moz @ April 21 2006, 18:36) If you just do your bit then throw it over the fence to the next person in the chain, it's not that person's fault if they get it wrong - it's yours.  People need to talk more about these things and work together so everyone is on the same page, and we're all happy with the final product. The need for this is clear. My guess is that in most cases the process is mainly linear, and one-way; that few are on the same page; and that a substantial number of people in the chain don't care about the final product. My other guess is that in many cases if you're not willing to throw it over the fence and leave it, then you may simply be elbowed out. @ The Big BellEnd I'm not suggesting that you can take an great existing LP-scale design and reduce it to CD size without inflicting serious damage on it. You certainly would, and I'm sure your example is a proof of that. You have to start from scratch, with a new concept of final size, and a new design to match. Back to top

The Big BellEnd Group: Members Posts: 971 Joined: Jan. 2004 Posted: April 22 2006, 14:42 Unfortunately size does count, then again if you like technology small has taken over, ie ipod. Nothing to look at and crappy head phones, good for nothing really. -------------- I, ON THE OTHER HAND. AM A VICTIM OF YOUR CARNIVOUROUS LUNAR ACTIVITY. Back to top

The Big BellEnd Group: Members Posts: 971 Joined: Jan. 2004 Posted: April 22 2006, 14:49 Hey how about this for the future CD's or Download's that have all the info built in and that audibly read out all the sleeve info and credits for you. Possibly by the Artist in person. Or has it been done already -------------- I, ON THE OTHER HAND. AM A VICTIM OF YOUR CARNIVOUROUS LUNAR ACTIVITY. Back to top

Alan D Group: Members Posts: 3670 Joined: Aug. 2004 Posted: April 22 2006, 16:05 Quote (The Big BellEnd @ April 22 2006, 19:42) Unfortunately size does count Well, sometimes it does, TBBE, but in art I don't think big is necessarily better. Some of the most inspiring works of art ever made (illuminated manuscripts, watercolours, engravings, etchings, woodcuts) are smaller (quite a lot smaller in some cases) than the size of a CD. Of course some things wouldn't look right on a tiny scale (and I think that's what you're really getting at, isn't it?) - but lots of things can, if they're properly designed. For example, this engraving by Turner is actually smaller than the image you see on your screen. Back to top

moonchildhippy Group: Members Posts: 1807 Joined: Dec. 2004 Posted: April 22 2006, 18:33 Speaking as someone who likes to collect records as well as CDs I find the quality varies so much. I own every album by Queen on LP(of those originally released on LP format),those I have on CD I think the majority of the original design tranfers on to CD well, alough in smaller form. My bigest disappointment is my CD copy of Queen's Greatest Hits (bought 1990) doesn't have the liner notes that accompanied the album.  Moving on to   Greatest Hits II the CD packaging is better than the LP   .   On my brother's CD of Tubular Bells it has a picture of Mike taken around the time of Incantations, I can't help but notice this glaring error.  On my copy however it has a picof teenage Mike with guitar,I would put his age at 15-17 years.(I don'thave a scanner so I couldn't upload this pic,I haven't found it on the net.   Maybe I'm being fussy but I like my CD artwork to   be   accurate. When I first bought a CD player I was often unhappy with the packaging  for a back catalouge album, often it would be just a  flimsy piece of paper.   I do think CD packaging has come along way since those days.   Perhaps the most dissapointing one                 bought in recent years is ZZ  Tops "XXX" ,a flimsy 4 page booklet,I paid  £15.99 for the pleasure       .   I personally think it's in everyones best interests,both the recording artist/band, CD buying music fans and the record companies to produce quality artwork on CDs   . -------------- I'm going slightly mad, It finally happened, I'm slightly mad , just very slightly mad If you feel a little glum to Hergest Ridge you should come. I'm challenging  taboos surrounding mental health "Part time hippy" I'M SUPPORTING OUR SOLDIERS BRING OUR TROOPS HOME NOW!! Back to top

Ugo Group: Members Posts: 5495 Joined: April 2000 Posted: April 22 2006, 19:56 All of this brings to my mind something that I was mentioning just yesterday to a friend of mine... When the Pet Shop Boys released Very, they had in mind the very issue that's being discussed here. Every time I hold the Very CD box in my hand, which is orange, rather sturdy and with big tactile dots, I always think how poor that artwork would've been, had the album been released on LP... a tactile cardboard cover, beautiful as it may be, surely doesn't make the same effect as a tactile plastic cover (of course IMHO). The immediate follow-up release, Relentless, a CD of outtakes from Very consisting of dancey instrumental tracks, was enclosed in a pink inflatable (and floating) box. Then, one year later, when PSB released their next album, Bilingual, they pushed the concept of playing with a CD's plastic box even further: almost the whole front cover was sandblasted, opaque, except for the fairly huge lettering of the title. These three releases are, I think, three rare examples (yes, I must admit it: they're rare...) of how a CD artwork/packaging can create art by itself.   @ Alan: I completely agree about Kate Bush's Aerial. I love the packaging, and I love the music. EDIT: The artwork of some CDs by Blackmore's Night (the drawn ones, not the photographic ones) is, I think, very cool and very suitable for a CD cover's size. I don't know whether those CDs have been released on LP, but IMHO those drawings would look disproportionately 'artistic' (i.e. too much art), were they blown up to the size of an LP cover. -------------- Ugo C. - a devoted Amarokian Back to top

Marky Group: Members Posts: 390 Joined: Sep. 2005 Posted: April 22 2006, 20:11 This echoes the point I made really. Albums composed after the CD age look good if the record company bothered to invest in such things as cover design as CD became the primary medium. Albums translated into CD from before then probably just got re-sized and took the luck of the draw. The contrast between albums has nothing to do with CDs as such. Its simply down to how much the company chooses to invest in an artist or how much clout an artist has with the company in determining what the album comprises. This is pretty obvious contractual stuff really. And Kate Bush, as a big seller, if she's out of contract, can say, I demand this for my new album CD artwork; for her prior artwork, rights sold, she can probably demand little. So if the record company chooses to make her first album from 1978 (or therabouts) into a CD, as it has, 15+ years later, then it has to decide whether to invest in re-sizing all the original artwork or redesigning it. What would you do when you are on a profit related bonus? Back to top

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