WE Records 003
"Still Electric"

The story of how a CD Cover is made:

Now that you understand how the music is created, you can see how we do the packaging. There are two modern kinds of packs... Jewel Boxes, the traditional version which we used with 002, and a newer, more ecological friendly one called a DigiPak which uses much less plastic, or none at all.

I couldn't figure out how to tell the story (which is the most important part of the project for me) in a small space while still staying true to Bruce's desire to be environmentally friendly so we compromised on the 6 panel with a single plastic tray. .

(As usual, Click on the little picture to see the Big Picture)

The part of the process that Nowell gets the most excitement from is the design of the booklet and holder. The last one was done as a full blown CD with 8 page booklet. We asked Jason Nokes, a well known designer, to develop the project and our friend Maria Gates printed all the pieces. This time, we asked Gardner Hart, a friend and a terrific artist, to do the design but, with a new baby, new wife and lots of work at work, G-man could only do the CD disk. So Nowell finally got to do the project, something I've wanted to do for twenty years.

The original design called for stuffing a lot of information into a small space which simply would not work. Since I was playing with Bruce's money I had to meet a budget that could make everything work out using a 6 panel DigiPack design that was eco-friendly and gave us the room to be creative.

Everything starts with a cover.  Bruce picked a photo and I had to make it work. There was no concept except to make it dramatic. Here is the evolution:

I started to use the one on the left because it showed the entire guitar and his body. When I decided to use the right hand one it was because his facial expression really demonstrated what he brings to music... intensity and aggressiveness. You can't be "Still Electric" and smiling... you've got to growl like your guitar. Of course, now you have to eliminate the background, a process that took me nine hours of work after watching six hours of movies just to learn how to do the process.

I really like the funky "Still Electric" type on the version 2 but Bruce isn't a funky kind of a guy. We went back to the simpler style but then I learned how to do graduated textures and the final version really hangs together. The color of the Bruce Edelson type was pulled from the guitar... a touch that I'm really happy I learned.

After finding a cover shot, we had to pick a unifying theme for the rest of the design. Since Bruce is foremost a guitarist (he used five different ones for the project) I decided that his guitars should be the key feature. When I placed the guitars behind the graphics, it seemed too plain so I found the border in a clipart file and rotated it for each version just to lend some variation:

Finally, we needed a strong image for the CD itself. Disc Makers gives us three colors (white is a color) so Gardner Hart (who merges edginess with an intense hatred of  Comic Sans type [sorry, G-man... I just love it to death]) went into creative overdrive. Here is the back panel with the disk:

Finally, because I ran out of guitars, I found a beautiful shot of the Pro Tools screen with some of the tracks John recorded. The wave forms and colors really looked cool. It makes a great graphic:

Next, we added the type and photos to finish the project. Part of the process for me was simply learning how Adobe In Design CS2 works. I had never used it before and really found it wonderfully easy (after bugging Gardner for tips) and versatile for this project. Here are the final pages. The plain guitar shot will be where the plastic CD holder is placed:

While one never really knows if Bruce likes anything (exuberance and excitement are my job), I am so jazzed about this design that I can hardly stand it. Yes, I know that Gardner would have done a more modern design but my approach was to keep the classic "Bruce" and add some diddley diddley's to the story. Now that you know the rest of the story, get ready to buy "Still Electric" and see it for yourself! 

© 2007 - Bruce Edelson