Designing a CD cover. . .

[Journey]

Does anyone know any good resources to help me with this task? Any information would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Journ

[crystal]

Hi Journey:

Find an artist whose work you love. That may be even as simple as a fellow high school student. Maybe there's a particular style of art that you are going for, say the Picasso look, or whatever.

Anyone's art can be turned into a CD cover. You don't need to go to a CD Design Consultant or whatever. I like things that include children's art.

[Ken Nielsen]

There's a lot involved in the process and you're best off to have the services of a competent Graphic Artist who also has a track record of retail package design and CD cases in particular. Check into this link and register to sign in then post this question as a new topic. You will have the company of some of the finest designers, photographers and graphics arts professionals who will help guide you with expert advice.

http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?14...PhbE^8@.ee6b362

[lwl]

I take it you want to do it yourself, and not pay someone else to do it.

There are inexpensive software programs out there that allow you to design CD covers and CD labels. I would suggest that would be a good place to start.

One decision you'll need to make is whether the front cover of the CD is just a single sheet, or if it's a booklet; modern word processors can handle formatting a booklet of that sort fine.

[Gamina]

If you want to have some fun with a few graphics programs, one that's not too hard to use but lots of fun and has a whole bunch of neat tricks is Adobe Photoshop.

Actually, Journ - since your still in high school (as I remember from another thread going around right now, but forgive me if I'm mistaken,) there's a good chance that your school actually has this, or other graphics programs of equal merit. Along with this, there's also the *tiny* possiblity that your school may also have half decent recording facilities! (Unlike mine. :-,) I just thought I might make the suggestion.

Best of luck with what your doing,

Gamina.

[roman]

Journ,

Designing a CD cover is really fun but takes a long time sometimes. It took me a good 3 months to get everything finalized with my designer. Part of the problem was that I was a couple thousand miles away and had to have the templates faxed to me a couple times. If you are planning on having the CD covers pressed professionally, there are some sites that you can go to that give the specifics on measurements. (the design has to fit within a certain area specific to the type of insert you are using etc.)

Give me an email if you have more questions.

roman

[Russ]

What kind of CD? Personal memento? Retail Sales? A number of excellent programs make it very easy for an amateur to create "bad" CD labels and jewel-case inserts. For a personal memento that's not a problem. For something you wish to sell it can be a serious issue, unless the point is to look amateurish. Even that's harder than it sounds. There's amateurish as done by a true amateur and there's "amateurish" as done by a professional.

[Park]

The guy we used did a real nice job with our CD. We sent him a whole packet of pictures and text and the basic layout we wanted. He would set to work on it and then email the document to us and then we said a little more here and a little less here and all until we came up with something we liked. You can look online at places like Oasis and the like for info and templates. You can even come up with a basic design with their templates and then have them work them over. It's all easy enough to get done if you've got the cash. Most times it's best to have them do the final design, glass mastering, and printing so it's all done under the same roof and you don't have to chase people down to get your product. You can design all the artwork or have someone else do the artwork like stated above, then send it off to have the printing company do the layout. IT's not really worth doing it all yourself unless you're only going to make 20 or so CD's. It really is cheaper to get about a thousand done. But really think about how many you're going to sell, if you're going to sell them. Most companies offer packages that have CD's and tapes...remember some of us still use cassettes in vehicles.

[double dad]

I'm assuming you mean jewel case artwork and not the label that goes on the physical CD itself...

I've used Microsoft Publisher for the CD and cassette covers I've made; it even supplies templates specifically for that purpose and you can import photos, etc.

It's probably not the best program for such a task but I only mention it because it's popular enough that many people might already have it on their computers and not be aware of everything they do with it.

Mark

[This message has been edited by double dad (edited 10-18-2001).]