Corrugated Card Cases?

To have the CD case of my zine made of corrugated cardboard may not be the best stock. The "corrugated" part means that when at the correct width, the spine of the CD is positioned on a single arch of corrugation (for want of better words).

Despite being the right size, this gives the spine a flimsy aesthetic, which is something that the client does not want. Its a shame because the stock itself is very effective - robust, hands on and individually crafted.

I experimented with making the spine wide enough to be on two of the arches of the corrugation. Although this made the spine as sturdy as could be, its just looks too wide and does not fit in fixed CD holders with individual slots.

Ees jass too beeg.

stock experiments / evaluation of content and layout

Initial "decent stock" trial with annotation. its a bit yellow, in the words of a friend - "looks a bit like bog roll like".

Reformatted layout - 3 columns through and through! Also b/w looks awesome, as does courier bold in caps for title and helvetica for body text (its the happy compromise!)

Thinking of text boxes around titles? Also, i need to get my illustrations done dammit! i cant be using jeffrey brown's stuff all the time.

ooooh... grey sugar paper! Its like a primary school clinical lo-fi thing going on here and i like it a lot.

the text looks very cool on the stock but images may not have enough contrast to be obvious what they're of. Also, the 3 column layout has been developed! it looks mint.

Again, ripping off Jeffrey Brown, but the comic is the exact format i imagined for the zine. It works so well with the square format. I really like the title/author column in a header / footer style. this will be made a feature of the final design and experimented with.

Zine case artwork / design

Some inital ideas for CD case designs - really simple wrap around nets. Basically containing logo / branding and image.

ooh, look at them all printed out and that. not very thick card unfortunately but the flaps on another net idea will create more rigidity to it.

Zine CD case trials

This was a very quick mock- up to show graham what i meant.

The idea was to give the zine a CD case but have the booklet and CD on opposite sides that a usual CD case to maintain the idea that the main product is the zine and that the compilation CD is a bonus. This is because there probably wont be much on it. ha!

A secondary mock up was produced as a stock experiment. I want to be able to produce multiple copies relatively easily but by doing it with the label, not with a print / design / cd duplication company.

This case was made out of a crunchy nut cornflakes box (I'm nuts for them). There are panels on the net that fold over design to hold a CD and have a booklet stuck to.

the advantage of these panels means that i can print the whole design one sided, which open the possibility of screen printing. It also means that the case is given some extra strength and solidity

Zine layout trials

Central logo on CD format booklet.

Initial text / image layouts based on 2 columns for an editorial and interview.

Initial Reviews and comic strip layout.

Initial digitised layout - oooh, logo has developed since i've taken a break from the website.

Each page has a different grid (unless they're of the same thing), this needs development - consistancy! The final thing wont be colour, i just printed it in colour to see what happened.

4 panel comic strip and 1 out of 2 columns editorial.

this is a black and white print of the zine entirely in helvetica. this definitely gave it a more clinical and, dare i say it, more of a "graphic design" feel to it..

Track descriptions for CD

Double page spread! logo invading margins - learn the rules then break em!
Possibly have a different stock here?

Zine - initial indesign double page spreads

Front cover - logo design. Nice and simple, not too over powering.

Small print, contents and introduction editorial, explaining a little bit about the label.

Interview with "recording technician" and client, Graham Smith. This is alongside descriptions of the first 3 songs on the compilation CD.

Again, next six tracks described

Comic strip or illustration (obviously still not properly sorted out) and editorial on the general lack of women in modern punk bands, particularly on local scales.

Centerfold with logo. Possibly On different stock?

comic / illustration and fireworks night editorial

Veganism editorial and comic / illustration

comic / illustration and editorial on "musical turning point"

Final word editorial and logo.

Zine format trials

After talking to the "client", it was decided that the zine should be relatively small and compact. This A6 mock-up was made as an example - colour card cover and black A5 folded sheets.
Graham decided that it was too "flyery" (i hope all my clients are this articulate) and that if he wasn't interested/involved, it would probably end up as junk just lying around.

Ahh. The concept that was suggested involved the zine being relatively smallscale but have some sort of longevity and substance to it. I had the idea of producing it alongside a compilation Cd and combining the two ideas together and it was agreed upon.

Resistance - it comes dressed in black and red

Not sure about this, the dumbells dont really work as the word - fonts been adjusted to the shape just a little too. Could work with a different font, but i want to keep everything in series and impact has been very good to me with the other designs.

Possibly too subtle? Its a bit cheeky this one cos the guys are the same one as him pulling that brick up that hill. Ropes a bit fat - could be better with a different font?

Bless, look at him struggle. I adjusted the text manually, which took an ice age, but i'm very happy with how its come out. maybe adjust the raised black part so its a bit more geometric looking.

I think this is my favourite one - i liked using the mesh thing successfully rather than just playing around with it. Also, the backpack was a bit of a palava but worked it out in the end.

The type was changed just playing around on the mesh. I'm not sure about the black text because all the others are red. I really like the fire extinguisher tho. It rocks.

Rain looks well good and the resistance of the umbrella is very obvious. I really like the way the text makes it a red umbrella.

Aww, look at him struggle, just like lorenzo suggested. seems somewhat sadistic, but i'll let it slide because it looks so much better than the original version. The colour and stress lines definitely add something to it as well.

Resistance in vectors!

Water resistance! Crit said there wasn't enough black to be in series with everything else. More rain? Text needs more work.

Physics joke! Scale needs sorting out to be in series. Resistance is hard to read, consider colour?

Looks like he's pushing it up, resistance is more struggling.

I cant wait to screenprint the hell out of these.

Website header

It was suggested by the client that my original navigation tabs were "a tad chunky". When at 100%, 800px makes this very obvious.

Ahh, that's much better.