A disc release looks like one object, yet it is a set of several separate surfaces. Each has a different size, different viewing conditions and a different job to do. Knowing that before you start designing saves you several rounds of corrections.
The most common mistake is designing the artwork as a single image and only then trying to spread it across the case. Then the title will not fit on the spine, the logo lands where the disc covers it, and the track listing slides into the margin.
What follows is a stocktake: surface by surface, what fits on each and how to tell something sits in the wrong place.
- The print on the disc is a circle with a hole in the middle - the centre is taken and the composition has to allow for it.
- The spines on the rear inlay are all you see when the case stands on its edge. The title goes there, not decoration.
- The rear inlay gathers the track listing, the details and any codes. It is the natural home for a logo.
- A booklet gives you from 2 to 36 pages on larger releases.
- The base of a SLIM case is black, so from that side there is no surface to print on at all.
- One logo in several places works better than five variants of it.
The print on the disc itself
The disc is round and has a hole in the middle, so the printing area is a ring rather than a circle. Anything you try to place in the very centre either disappears into the hole or gets cut through. It sounds obvious, and it is still the correction most often needed on a first design.
Two rules follow. First, the composition copes far better with a concentric arrangement, meaning text led around the centre, than with one built outwards from the middle. Second, a disc tends to be looked at in motion and in poor light, so small type on it misses the point.
The disc has one more advantage that people forget: it is seen at exactly the moment of playback, when somebody takes it out and puts it into a player. That makes it a good place for a brand mark.
The cover and the spines
The cover is the first thing anyone sees, and it is responsible for the release being recognised. It follows a simple rule: one main message and one place where the eye comes to rest. A title, a graphic motif, perhaps a subtitle. Everything beyond that weakens what is already there.
The spines are a different story altogether. In a CD-BOX case with covers, which is around 10.4 mm thick, the rear inlay has folded wings along its sides. This is the only part visible when the case stands on its edge on a shelf, in a drawer or in a binder.
That is why the title belongs on the spine and decoration does not. A graphic band looks handsome in the design file and helps not at all when somebody is hunting for one particular disc among twenty others. A narrow, legible typeface pays off, because a spine is read at an angle and from above.
Before you approve the spine artwork, print it at full size on ordinary paper, cut out the strip and lay it along the edge of any case you have to hand. Three seconds of checking like that saves a whole run with an illegible title on it.
The rear inlay and the booklet
The rear inlay is the practical part of the release. This is where the track listing goes, along with information about the performers, the publisher details and any codes. It is also the most natural home for a logo, because there it competes with nothing that is supposed to attract the eye.
On a larger release the inlay stops being enough. A CD-BOX case will take a 4 or 6 page inlay, or a sewn booklet of 8 to 28 pages.
When a booklet is worth it
When you actually have something to put in it: the words of the songs, a description of the repertoire, photographs, a few words from the company, an account of how the recording came about. An empty booklet looks worse than a single well-made cover.
Booklets and inlays are ordered either as a 2, 4 or 6 page inlay, or as a saddle-stitched booklet whose extent grows in steps of four pages, from 8 to 36. The print is CMYK, meaning the four basic printing inks.
SLIM cases and cardboard packaging
A SLIM case with covers measures 5.2 mm and takes a cover or a sewn booklet. Its base is black, so from that side there simply is no surface to print on, which means all your communication has to fit onto the cover and onto whatever you slip inside.
Cardboard packaging follows a different logic. It has no tray and no spines in the same sense, but it has folds and panels that open out, so the surfaces form a sequence: what you see on opening is part of the design, not the back of the cover. On 4P and 6P digipacks you also gain the option of selective varnish, a glossy accent laid over a chosen part of the artwork, for instance over the brand mark itself.
The practical conclusion is simple: the thinner the case, the fewer places you have to say anything at all, and the more carefully you have to choose what goes there. That limit can be helpful, because it forces decisions that a larger release lets you postpone indefinitely.
Where a logo works and where it gets in the way
A logo on the cover almost always competes with the title. The cover has one job, and two marks of equal weight on it scatter attention instead of holding it. If the brand has to be present on the front, it is better to place it small and in a corner than centrally beside the title.
- The disc - a natural place, because the mark is seen every time it is played.
- The rear inlay - equally natural, alongside the details and the track listing.
- The spine - only if room is left after the title; the title comes first.
- Inside the booklet - a good place for the mark beside a few words from the company.
- The cover - carefully, and preferably small.
The second rule concerns the number of versions. One logo repeated in several places builds coherence. Five variations, each in a different colour and arrangement, suggest several people assembled the project separately. The size is right when the mark is legible at arm's length - anything larger adds nothing but noise.
The order of designing
- Choose the packaging, because it sets the number and the size of the surfaces.
- Gather the content - title, track listing, details, codes, texts for the booklet.
- Assign the content to surfaces before you start drawing anything.
- Design the cover and only after it the spines and the rear inlay.
- Check the legibility of the smallest elements at full size.
- Approve the proof - look at every surface side by side on it, because only together do you see whether the cover, the spine, the disc and the inlay say the same thing.
The technical requirements for files, bleeds and outlined type are described in our file preparation section.
A disc release rewards order. If you assign the content to surfaces before you start designing, the question of where to put the logo answers itself, because one obvious place is usually left over. On holding the whole thing together visually we wrote in our post on designing a CD and its packaging with brand identity, and on where such a release later does its work in our piece on a branded music CD in a hotel, a restaurant and a treatment room.
