For Christmas this past year my wife recorded an album of 11 songs to send to my grandparents. So me being the awesome husband I am I created a custom album sleeve for her. Just a simple front and back design that would fit on an 8.5×11 template that we could assemble ourselves. By the way, if you’re looking for a good resource for album cover templates I recommend checking out theses oasis cd templates. They came in quite handy.
So like all good projects, we started with a little brainstorming session and some quick sketches while we talked about what to title the cd. We settled on “HYMNS: by Amanda And Other Songs You Can Sing to Jesus”.
After she decided on the design I went from sketch straight in to illustrator. I used a mixture of live trace (for all the hand-drawn type on the tracklist) and tracing the shapes by hand. As far as choosing a color palette, I wanted it to be something soft and wintery. I did have snow flakes in my initial design, but decided against them when it went to the printer. I think the light gray of the sky and the stark black silhouette of the trees and house do a good job of giving off that cold, winter-like feeling. And the North Star was icing on the cake.
Update
I forgot to post this link originally, but you can stream the entire album over on my wife’s virb page.
Best CD cover ever.
Love you
I agree. Love you too.
That’s a really cool CD cover. My favourite CD covers are the ones that feel handmade. You’ve probably already seen them but you should check out the sigur ros covers and Mum covers – they’re amazing.
.-= Luke Jones´s last blog ..What Brings You Back? =-.
Yes, I have always been a fan of the Sigur Ros covers. The handmade element is something that’s being lost in the new digital era. I mean you can make it have all the texture in the world, but holding an album in your hands is a completely different experience.
Duuuuuuuuude! This is fantastic! Can I buy my own copy!??!
Kyle = Freakin’; Amanda = Sweet; Kyle+Amanda = Freakin’ Sweet. You guys make a splendid pair.
Sure you can buy a copy. They only cost $1,000,000 and we only take cash (or gold) but please no checks.
I approve this post.
Also, for those interested you can listen to the full album here:
http://virb.com/amandasteed/audio/albums/104332
Nice one. Thanks for posting up the link.
Great work here, I like it and your passion for hand-making your projects.