His Shadow is Light

Dave encouraged me to continue with the blog thing even after Graphic Design was over. I think it's a good idea! So here I am detailing my final project for that class. We were to redesign packaging for an existing product, doing our best to be innovative.

I chose to redesign the packaging for the CD His Shadow is Light by Jay Tholen. He is one of my favorite musicians and I had been listening to tracks 2 through 4 quite a bit at the time!

So first off, I needed to do a ton of sketches. Most of these actually came very easily to me, which is encouraging. Do I have a future designing packages?

The album has a very heavy religious vibe, but there are also creepy undertones. So I went with a lot of imagery involving the cross, along with some "He's watching you" touches here and there.


Click


Click


Click

The one below was inspired by this CD package design that I found on Google. By this point I had met my sketch quota and was just brainstorming with extra time.

Click


Click

After viewing my sketches, we all decided that the "eyeball" sketch would be the best. I then went about creating a mockup at about 1/3rd scale. I didn't think I needed to spend as much time on that and instead concentrated on the package decoration. I regret this now, as my flimsy paper mockup LOOKED just fine... but if I had really spent time examining it I would have found that my measurements were completely off!

But I did not. And so I went ahead with my design. I used lettering I'd created for a typography project on the package. I thought that the whimsical look I was going for was captured well by that text.


Click

After that, it was time to make the actual packaging! Finding the right materials that would work with my printer proved challenging. First, I tried to run card stock through my printer but it refused. A friend gave me some nice glossy paper I tried to use instead, but my inkjet printer hated it. The lettering came out all fuzzy. I ended up having to use plain printer paper and spray tack it onto poster board.

I managed to get through the cutting phase mostly unscathed, but once I began constructing the package I ran into a host of problems. As I said before, my measurements were somehow off. One flap of the front cover was too short, and the other flap was too long by just as much! Eek! So... I doubled up the magnets I had procured on one side so that it would even out. As I folded up the sides and began to glue them, I found that rubber cement, the best thing I had available, just wasn't going to hold it. I guess I should invest in a glue gun. After a great deal of grunting and pinching, I finally got it to stay in place.


Look at my beautiful package! (yeah, I know, not that beautiful)

If I had enough time to refine and redo this thing... Perhaps, an extra week, I am confident that I could have made it fantastic. As it stands, it is just... mediocre. But I learned a great deal!


At least I now have an actual CD case for this lovely CD I downloaded :) (feel free to examine this image and question my tastes in music/games)