The more professional approach would be to treat the cover of a CD or DVD as its calling card that informs the targeted audience about the content in an attractive way. A customized CD or DVD graphic cover is the first step in appropriately packaging a product that is to be commercially released.
Basically, an appealingly designed cover serves three main purposes, such as:
Helps in selling the product:
A professionally designed CD cover gives presents your product in an appealing way and grabs attention of the buyer from among the stacks of other CD releases on the shop shelves. To make your CD get noticed from the clutter of competitive releases is a big step in ensuring better sales and that is what a good cover does.
Gives the CD or DVD a unique identity:
Cover art helps the audience to distinguish from various CDs or DVDs. It informs the targeted audience about they can expect inside the CD. For instance, if it is a music CD, the name of the album, the singer's name and song tracks are neatly listed in the cover.
Allows the audience to know the product:
The more professional the looks of the cover, the better are the chances of your CD being picked up by the buyers. A tastefully done cover with say, a picture of the artist (if it is a music release) or a still from the movie (if it is a film release) and so on goes a long way in convincing a customer about the quality of the content inside and prompts a purchase decision.
Why a professional graphic designer?
It is true that nowadays it is possible to design page layouts with the help of various software applications, but very people have the required designing skills or adequate knowledge of hardware and software to ensure a professional looking CD cover. CD packaging is a crucial marketing step, and an experiment by amateurs is not a good idea. Don't think of designing a cover by yourself if you don't know the basics of designing.
There are many CD and DVD duplication service providers in London, New York, or say Mumbai, who also deal in CD packaging and CD cover designing. Good graphic designers have the talent to take the rough cover concepts of the customers and transform them into a great cover design. At times, they also come up with a complete graphic concept, design and cover layout to give your project maximum marketing impact.
Moreover most of the "professional" graphic designers design CD covers on a Mac platform using QuarkXPress with Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator, and exporting the final layout from Quark as a printable PDF. It ensures minimum printing complications and a good quality final product.
Frankly speaking, there is no substitute for hiring a trained graphic designer to work on your cover design. They have experience, technical skill and knowledge of all the proper tools of the trade to give a final product that you will be proud of.
Cd Packaging And Duplication
In the highly competitive CD and DVD world, where scores of products are being launched everyday, the “appearance” of the products matters a lot from the marketing point of view. Just as one cannot afford to compromise on the quality of content or the CD and DVD, similarly one should not cut corners on the packaging aspect either.
Whether, you want to send a demo of your music album to a music company or you are ready with your first album to launch it in the market, an attractive and innovative packaging will go a long way in creating a positive first impression amongst the targeted audience.
There is an extensive range of CD and DVD packaging options that can be broadly categorized into two groups - Standard Packaging and Creative Packaging.
Standard packaging includes the standard CD jewel case, slim jewel case, clam shells, DVD case and plastic wallets. On the other hand, creative packaging includes the digipak, printed card wallets, mail packs, single packs, slipcases and more.
Here are some basic guidelines to help you choose the right kind of packaging once you completed the CD or DVD replication or duplication and are ready to launch your product in the market.
1. Find a reputed company
Since CD or DVD replication or duplication as well as packaging are equally time consuming jobs, look for a company that offers both CD or DVD Duplication Services and packaging solutions. It would not only help you to save on time, but also prove to be more economical.
2. Negotiate the price
Packaging comes in a wide range of prices. Hence, you must always be careful about the price factor as it can go really high at times. To be on the safer side, get the price quote for a particular work from a couple of companies and then decide the final company after looking at their offers.
Choose the right packaging
Usually when it comes to packaging options for CDs or DVDs, there is a wide range of options. Depending upon your marketing strategy and the market where you want to launch your product, you can choose Digipak, Jewel Cases, Printed Wallet or Non-printed Wallet.
Customized pack
By selecting the right packaging, you can launch your brand in the market as never before. In fact, there are many specialized companies who would be happy to create and design a new and bespoke pack to meet your specific requirements. Customized packaging would help in making a real impression upon the buyer's mind.
Decide the size
A CD or DVD pack can hold one, two, three or at the max four CDs or DVDs per pack. Depending upon the size of your production you can decide the size and capacity of a pack beforehand. You don't want your buyer to find difficulty to handle the CD due to improper size of the package.
Print finish
The overall look of any CD packaging option depends a lot on the print finish. There are many types of print finishes such as embossing, matt lamination, gloss UV, foil blocking and die cutting to name a few. To give your CD/DVD packaging a more attractive feel, choose the print finish that will suit your production best.
Neat Font
In marketing, neatness actually counts. Whenever you need to print some text on the package, select a neat font. The text for cover letter, press kit and lyrics must be clear and neatly written. Go that extra mile to make sure that the title of the production or its key feature is clearly visible to the buyers from the packaging itself.
Both Mark Thomas & Marky Thomas are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
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