19. Photoshoot

I loved this part! I love taking pictures with my camera!

It was a little bit difficult taking pictures to the cd case, because of its shape. I wanted to do it from a top view, but there wasn't any top stand in the studio and the lens was distorting the edges. I found some other ways, but it's more difficult to see all the details.

18. Gluing all together

MVI 5165 from Lorenzo Positano on Vimeo.

The cut had to be very precise... and unfortunately it wasn't! Probably because it was printed double face, it was very hard position the knife exactly where it had to be. I wasted 2 or 3 prints before the cuts were in the right place.

17. Zund cutter

MVI 5165 from Lorenzo Positano on Vimeo.

The cut had to be very precise... and unfortunately it wasn't! Probably because it was printed double face, it was very hard position the knife exactly where it had to be. I wasted 2 or 3 prints before the cuts were in the right place.

16. Printing

It's finally time to print! It took a while to understand the double side thing, but it worked! Unfortunately I had to reprint one sheet, and I don't know why the color changed a little bit.

15. External packaging

This is the complete artboard of the case + booklet with illustrations and lyrics.

I'm very satisfied with the result, especially with the storytelling!

14. Other illustrations

The rest of the illustrations. I tried to keep the same style for every image (flat color, very geometric, always split in a half using 2 different shades of the same color). Some came out better than others, but I feel pretty satisfied.

13. Cover

For the cover I decided to use also another typeface. At first I wanted to use the Bodoni, under suggestion of Franc, but it was too characteristic and I was scared that the blue ink of the background could eat the thin parts of this beautiful font. I ended with Garamond, it has less contrast, but it's still elegant when paired with Univers.

Around the title of the album and the artist, there are some examples of the illustrations on the back, all turning around the center as it was a planet.

12. First digital illustrations

This is the first illustration that starts the storytelling of the album: the spaceship leaves a trail that plays with the other illustrations and with the text on the other side.

11. Typography

I love the typeface Univers (it's also one of the Massimo Vignelli's favorite, together with Bodoni and few others). I think it's perfect in this case for the text, because some songs are pretty long and need to put many words in a small place. The size is 8 points, hope that the blue ink of the background won't eat the white of the text...

Univers regular for the title.
Univers condensed for the text.

10. Palette

The album talks about sky, space, ghosts. So I think the best background color is a very vivid blue. For the lyrics I'm conna use a light blue for the titles and white for the text. For the illustrations I'm gonna use some shades of orange, of gray and of dark blue. I like these vivid colors, they will stand out from the background.

09. First drawings

As Hannah Smotrich, the professor of Poster Design, always tells me, I should start drawing my illustrations on paper and then digitalize them. Subjects are taken from the lyrics of the songs.

08. Materials

I need a double sided printable paper. The biggest paper I could find is 17x22inches, it's made in Germany but it's shipped from California. It seems a good quality, it's called Arista Duo Matte, in theory it's perfect. The only problem is that all my package won't fit in just one sheet, since it's 58 inches long! Will have to split the printing in 2 or 3 sheets and then glue them together at the end. A lot of work! And still have to figure out how to print double side, probably I have to center the image on the artboard.

Bye bye 30$!

07. Digital structure: cuts and scores

This is the ideal structure of the CD case, integrated with the booklet. The albus is composed by 9 songs, every song needs a square of the booklet. The CD will be stored inside a pocket at the top of the booklet.

I took so long to figure out the right score places, the cuts, the bleeds! Hope it will work!

06. Box structure

I like the idea of the folded accordion, I'm gonna try to attach it to the external case

05. Coldplay

Why do I want to re-package the Coldplay's CD "Ghost Stories"?
It's their last album, they are one of my favorite artists, they pay a lot of attention to the design of their merchandising, lyrics of their songs are very inspiring!

04. Focus: CD

Even if the CDs and DVDs are going to disappear very soon because of the new technology (music and video "in the cloud"), sometimes I still use them. Some of them are contained in pieces of art, in a very smart packaging or with beautiful images. But most of the time the CD is inside the standard plastic case that brakes the first time it falls on the floor.

In my idea the packaging has to satisfy these criteria:
- it doesn't brake when it falls down (no plastic)
- maybe made of thick paper, since I'm a graphic designer I can work on it better
- no weird shapes (no hexagons, octagons...), it's better if it's close to a square/rectangle so that you can easily store it with the other CDs
- the booklet with lyrics should be integrated in the packaging, so that it doesn't get lost
- the booklet should tell a story, the story of the album and the songs
- the cover should have a "hole" to see through it
- flat design illustrations. I'm not an illustrator but... let's try!

03. Research good and innovative packaging

I did a quick research about good and innovative packaging too. These examples are very creative, some are real, some are just projects though. When you design a packaging, you have to think also of the cost to produce it, the materials... If it's a very complicated packaging, it could cost more than the maximum budget.

02. Research Re-Packaging

Let's do some research about re-packaging.

There aren't a lot of good examples... Big brands usually make small changes. There are just some personal projects

01. The brief

This is the brief for the second project:

Re-design the packaging of an existing product you find problematic. Your proposal should include an assessment of the flaws of the packaging and the proposed improvements to the design. Include in your assessment discussion of the features/properties of the packaging such as imagery, color, dimensions, materials, ergonomics,...

I like this idea! the problem is that usually I buy things also because of their packaging. I don't buy products with a bad packaging. And the second problem is that products from Italy are different than the products from USA. I'll take a look in shops and grocery stores.