LIrecordings
New member
Hi folks,
Long-time lurker, first-time poster. I run a small boutique record label in Portland, ME and wanted to ask y'all opinions on creative, unique and inexpensive ways to package CDs for release. I'm working towards doing vinyls for my artists, but it's so expensive and really not in the cards right now.
While I don't love CDs (who does these days?), I still feel as if each release needs a physical package of some sort. Since the whole principal of the label is to give people tangible things that they'll want to hold onto forever, though, the last thing I want to do is send the projects out to Discmakers. Another thing to consider is we're doing mainly short runs of 100 copies for each release, and having that printed by one of the "big boys" is just not worth the costs.
I'll be printing the discs myself, and am looking for some insight into ways to package them that are not only unique, but relatively inexpensive. Time-consuming is fine; the first run of my own band's debut was all hand-painted packaging. That took a bit too long, but if we can make these things look beautiful then I'm 100% into it.
Here are just two ideas that I have myself, but I'm looking to expand upon:
1.) Hand screen-printing on Stumptown Printers heavy chipboard packaging, including vellum inserts etc. The standard of "DIY-chic," maybe?
2.) One of my artists is into doing collages, and for her release (in addition to cds packaged somehow) she's going to hand-collage jewelry boxes that we'll sell for say $10; open it up and you have a download code imprinted in it.
Anyways, I'd love to get some insight from people that have gone the DIY route before, whether it be CD or digital download packaging. Mostly interested in CD packaging ideas, though, as with digital downloads you can do practically anything; whiddle a spoon or something!
Cheers,
--
Erik
Long-time lurker, first-time poster. I run a small boutique record label in Portland, ME and wanted to ask y'all opinions on creative, unique and inexpensive ways to package CDs for release. I'm working towards doing vinyls for my artists, but it's so expensive and really not in the cards right now.
While I don't love CDs (who does these days?), I still feel as if each release needs a physical package of some sort. Since the whole principal of the label is to give people tangible things that they'll want to hold onto forever, though, the last thing I want to do is send the projects out to Discmakers. Another thing to consider is we're doing mainly short runs of 100 copies for each release, and having that printed by one of the "big boys" is just not worth the costs.
I'll be printing the discs myself, and am looking for some insight into ways to package them that are not only unique, but relatively inexpensive. Time-consuming is fine; the first run of my own band's debut was all hand-painted packaging. That took a bit too long, but if we can make these things look beautiful then I'm 100% into it.
Here are just two ideas that I have myself, but I'm looking to expand upon:
1.) Hand screen-printing on Stumptown Printers heavy chipboard packaging, including vellum inserts etc. The standard of "DIY-chic," maybe?
2.) One of my artists is into doing collages, and for her release (in addition to cds packaged somehow) she's going to hand-collage jewelry boxes that we'll sell for say $10; open it up and you have a download code imprinted in it.
Anyways, I'd love to get some insight from people that have gone the DIY route before, whether it be CD or digital download packaging. Mostly interested in CD packaging ideas, though, as with digital downloads you can do practically anything; whiddle a spoon or something!
Cheers,
--
Erik
We run a small scale business unit in Toronto. We usually go for
