Child Child’s second EP called ‘Tveir‘ is out for free download on SoundCloud now or .RAR featuring seven new tracks and one new remix by Jason Dragon. There are around 50 tracks recorded and we are editing them down into the forthcoming album ‘Cliff Child‘ to release in the Summer. Some of these make up the EP’s Einn and the new Tveir.
We can also announce the new book ‘Cliff Child Artworks‘ is now for full preview and sale via the microsite or Blurb for £12 in softback.
Cliff Child is Sjorn Björnsson hailing from Egilsstaðir in collaboration with Robjn who produced all the tracks, videos and artwork. All tracks by Cliff Child & Robjn. Production by Robjn.com.
Follow Cliff Child on Twitter: http://twitter.com/CliffChild
The Soft Machine is the title of a novel by William S. Burroughs, first published in 1961. It was originally composed using the cut-up and fold-in techniques, this inspired my design on the cover. Taking a photo of Burroughs, cutting it up and shifting the edits around. I think it is as abstract as the original [right], but still communicates the name and title well.
I took the book ‘How Children Fail’ and decided to rework the covers design. I created the original heading and typeset style to pelican books in Adobe InDesign then used Illustrator to make the images. I ended with two samples that I considered strong enough using images from wikipedia re-edited, working my own images into the designs. The Original cover is below in red.
Some print work I made with Illustrator for Coca-Cola advert mock ups. Using the bottle image I added liquid and bubbles as well as each countries flag and a colour scheme for each to test effects in Illustrator.
I have been thinking to write this out for bands for some time so here I go. Its the art of the perfect limited edition in music. I will cover some of the basic tricks bands/record company’s do to make collectable items and in these times were people are buying less physical music its a common trick to entice people in.
I hope to then write a post about what you can do cheaply. Some of these items on the list might not be too useful if your a small band (due to the amount of items you would have to press) and most musical success is coverage and promotion. If you can get your record in to a shop that’s great and from there you can use some of these tricks. There lots of independent stores that might give you shop space like fopp used to [pre hmv take over.]
So to start with the Bonus Tracks.
Ever since the record industry has faced digital downloads the bonus track has been important. It’s a rather comic affair to be perfectly honest post 2002. Before you would have a 12 track album, now it would be a 10 track album + 2 bonus tracks! Its a very typical thing to see now on any record heading for the top ten. However pre 2002 Japan always used to do this by adding one more track than the rest of the worlds editions. Its routinely the first B-side from the albums single. For example Madonna’s Ray of Light single B-side was “Has to Be” and it was for the Japanese release. Post 2002 in Japan there has been more Bonus tracks in the UK style so Four extra tracks is a normal number. Maybe a B-Side some remixes or live tracks.
Coloured Vinyl.
This was the quickest form to make your product more attractive and interesting and has been used since records came about, (I had red children’s records when I was young) But really these days I think coloured vinyl is so easy to make that the markets swamped. I think clear vinyl is more interesting myself but still there is a lot of it about. The last is an okay example of mixed colours – I bought this for a friend who was and probably still is addicted to coloured records its a Stitches / le Shock 7″.
Picture Discs
Like the shaped record the picture disc can easily turn into a disgusting design disaster.
I have some beautiful examples luckily. The first is Morning runner’s ‘the great escape’. The illustration is by Kam Tang and the record is square so maybe it should be in the shaped record but still, its a fantastic work of design. Cased in a Plastic Wallet and then stickered with the record details its very easy on the eye – esp for something in black and white.
This Goldfrapp record almost ticks every box on how to make something a limited edition.
It has a sticky seal over the top with the record details on so you have to void it to play the tracks. It contains a track on the B side that hasn’t been pressed onto a Goldfrapp cd [other than one promotional cd]
Adding to this its a picture disc and the postcard artwork is Alison Goldfrapp’s own design. Topping it off its numbered in an edition of 3000 so if you just want to shift the stock and don’t care for the charts then this is a good way.
(2006 UK strictly limited edition 2-track 7″ vinyl PICTURE DISC including Flaming Lips remix of ‘Satin Chic’ which, in typical Lips psychedelic fashion, is named the ‘Through The Mystic Mix, Dimension, plus Alison & Will’s extraordinary version of The Ordinary Boys’ ‘Boys Will Be Boys’ as performed during their recent classic Live Lounge session on Jo Whiley’s BBC Radio 1 show, complete with Bonus Artwork Sticker!) **Limited to 3000 Copies Only** **Non-Chart Eligible**
Another style of bag and seal item is the Bjork Lmt Edition of ‘Post’ They also came with a handle so it would be a mini handbag.
Shaped & 3” Cd’s.
Now to anyone with an iMac or car stereo these are useless as they wont load in but to everyone with a normal Tray based cd player they are fine. They are still different but there’s something about shaped items that lacks seriousness for me. The 3″ cd is perfect for a design statement but I’m still at sea when it comes to the shaped. cds.
Shaped records.
These are more expensive to make and very hard to design well. For me they say something about the 1980′s that wasn’t good most of the time. However the top two are two modern copies and the Police one is an okay pass for the 80′s design wise.
Etched Vinyl
Another revival of late is etching. With bands shifting back to vinyl and all the additional ways of making something a limited addition it makes a record into an artwork. In my view the more like a drawing the etching is the more successful.
Some examples here of Portishead, Sigur Ros and the Foals then two older styles with Paul McCartney and some guy called Fischer.
From Engraving/Etching to Embossed
Embossing can be expensive like engraving but done well it can look great, some nice examples below.
Numbered Editions.
You will have noticed some of these are numbered, generally they don’t mention of how many issues these are numbered so yours could be 193 of 20,000. However it’s a simple way to make people feel they have something others might not. Usually limited editions are under 5,000 copys but if you look at art, typically the high end prints artists do don’t go more then 250.
Handmade.
Emiliana Torrini’s limited release for Lifesaver was a 7” record in a bag with sleeve. She also added dried pressed leaves and hand signed each record. I forget how many of these she said there were but her autograph was getting more simple as they went on.
Additional Items
Adding Artwork. Like the Lo-Af records adding posters or artwork can be a plus. I have seen postcards done for Enya and many pop bands. Esp teen bands. But this copy of the cures love song was slightly different in it contained a print on a slip of fabric. I’m guessing these are mass produced on some giant printer somewhere but it would look nice framed. It also comes in a box with the 7″ record so something a little different but based on the typical postcard option. These box sets retail for about £20-£25 at the moment probably due to the song also being fantastic.
Adding technology.
Now anyone with a cd burner can make some sort of CD-R with added data on it. Maybe a video or even a web page with some images / lyrics / song samples on. However with technology in the 90s bjork did made cdr’s but she also used VHS [all the rage back then].
It looks very high end in its box with three cds and the VHS. However when you think about it from inside the record company All three cds were being retailed as a three part set all at £3.99 each. So they would have been printed anyway. The VHS would have also been made for promotional’s to TV stations [see here] so all you would need to do is order more copys of the same pressings on cd. say 5000 rather than 3000. And then make a limited 2000 piece box set!
Regardless these items are a nice way to have music and make the fans feel like they are getting more for the money [they originally were £19.99] 3Xcd = £11.97 + VHS and Box. All the singles were packed in the same boxes with the single artworks and are very collectable now.
The Free-bee.
This cd was given away to the first 20,000 members of the bjork fan club. A simple promotional tool to get people to sign up in the same way bands offer a free mp3 for people who join their mailing lists. Like most of these bands the music given away isn’t commercial release, it’s a compilation of a MTV unplugged recordings.
Things Done Well
Lo-af Records:
This record label have been releasing 12″ artwork record sleeves but with a twist they hold a cd and come with a poster attached to the cover on a plastic wallet [or sometimes a record and no cd but never both]. The posters are also very interesting to me as its an old trick to have a poster but Lo-af’s posters are of unconnected artworks by artists and not just press photos of the musicians so making the package an interesting artistic mix.
So to break it down, Its a 12″ square of card with a typical plastic bag with sticky edge over it and from what I can make out the poster bag + cd are stuck to the front cover and then the whole thing is screen printed over with bold type. The reformatting of size for an item like a 7” or 3” cd by putting them into the frame of a 12” I thought was interesting.
I think the idea could be exspanded so it also contains a 12” or 7” record and mini 3” cd; in the days of digital dominance I thought this was a great idea as it would save you ripping the music from the record with a usb turntable. If they wanted to make these really collectable I would suggest heat sealing them so you have to cut the plastic and almost void it. However these are nice in that you can replace the sticky tab.
Some more of the high end tricks.
Garbage have had some of the most interesting collectables for 7” records due to the shifting of packaging ideals. Not always just paper and card. And if it did use paper and card it had something added.
Vow- Metal case.
An embossed slip case for the 7” single and now very collectable as its hard to find one that hasn’t been scratched. [The promo 7'' for subhuman was a rubber design just like this.]
The ‘G’ Album box set.
All the songs from the album on 7″ with the artwork also printed on 7” squares of paper and cased in a box. All the records have the artwork tainted in different colours so you know what song is what.
Why Do You Love Me
The 7” of why do you love me featured a plain grey card 7” sleeve but then was wrapped around with pink gaffa tape so you had to cut the tap to get to the record – such voiding the product. But a radical shift in packaging. Then a transparent sticker over the top shows you the details. However this could have also been screen printed.
Stupid Girl
Another shift with the ‘G‘ logo and this time its a fabric record sleeve with a plastic G stitched onto the cover. This copy is then placed in a PVC surround then stickered with the details. Inside is a typical card record sleeve with the details of production and tracks and helps retain the shape of the fabric. There is a blue and red issue of this. Both the same track listing so really its only the fabric and sticker that needed to be changed. If there are 2000 of the blue and 2000 of the red they would only have to press 4000 records with the same internal sleeve so saving money on pressing too.
Only Happy When It Rains.
This features theDie Cut. Basicly a die cut is a stamp like a cookie cutter. In this case the 12″ has the ‘G’ showing the internal record sleeve.
Milk.
This is a simple record cover but with a hologram of milk flowing over the ‘G’ logo.
Task:
The Illustration part of the Laserlong project was to make an album cover. On all the designs I tried, trees always appeared so the end image was a simple screen print of tree and a reflection. The CD designs and some of the prints are below.
Task: Design some samples to be used in fabrics and wallpapers.
The first sample of ‘Army Dreamers’ uses the images of solders to be used on cushions and curtains. The second sample of the set is for wallpaper or the main sofa print. Paintings (c) The Napoleon Series. The second Pattern set ‘Animals’ Are for fabrics or stationary. They range from retro to traditional in colours. The ‘Linearis’ set is a simple set of black and white patterns.
Task:
During some free time over my University holidays I started to make a version of the book ‘Alice in Wonderland’ using cut up pieces of newspaper and scanning them in. I cut out the Alphabet from many newspapers and then arranged then on the scanner to create the first chapter of the book. I got the words for the book from the Project Gutenberg website. The images are made from the original illustrations with added found items such as the patterns inside envelopes.
Task:
A project for University was based on the Alphabet and of symbols.
The brief was very open but we had to look into the forms of alphabets andthere stuctures. During my reserch I came across the Voynich manuscript.
The Voynich manuscript is a mysterious illustrated book with incomprehensible contents. It is thought to have been written between approximately 1450 and 1520 by an unknown author in an unidentified script and unintelligible language.
Over its recorded existence, the Voynich manuscript has been the object of intense study by many professional and amateur cryptographers, including some top American and British codebreakers of World War II fame (all of whom failed to decipher a single word). This string of failures has turned the Voynich manuscript into a famous subject of historical cryptology, but it has also given weight to the theory that the book is simply an elaborate hoax — a meaningless sequence of arbitrary symbols. (Wikipedia)
From this I took some of the letters and made a sellection of prints. These were scanned, bound and presented in a document.
Task:
A book of prints made at the Curwin Studio, Cambridgeshire. I took a sample of images and drawings and the men at the Curwin studio made them very colourful and interesting on the page. Its with full thanks to them that these came out so well.
