Metamatic Forums John Foxx John Foxx design of the metamatic reissue...

Speaking personally, I've never been that fond of digipacks - and I'm struggling to think of one that really looked good. Even if you're the sort of person who takes care of things like that (and I certainly am) then it doesn't take long for them to start looking a little tired.

Rob

Absolutely. Joy Division's 'Heart & Soul' box set is basically one big digi-pak and as much as I've tried to keep it nice and clean over the last ten years it's looking a bit scruffy, whereas my hardback 'The Thrill of it All' Roxy Music box set looks pristine by comparison and that's at least 12 years old.

it's actually the very same for good ol' vinyl covers & digipacks to keep them in good shape & style !

anyway ... i've once kept almost ALL my original cd cases & covers WITHOUT the cd(s) in it & put the cds in seperate inlays , which lead to a wee bit confusion ... after i had more than 1000 cds ! :-o
but that was already some time before u could rip the music from cds onto your computer like today ! ;-)

The durability of a digipack is the big downside - and it's a shame. They look smarter initially but once they start to get crumpled at the edges, it's downhill from there.

Plus they take up more room in the CD cabinet! I still like them though!

or if not a digipack, a good slipcase is often nice, if a bit pointless!

I agree with you Rob, I look after my CD's, DVD's and other things but the CD's and DVD's that I have with cardcard casing do start to look tired afer a short time.

Peter

Being a packaging and graphic designer I do have to agree with Alex - done well the Digipack format looks beautiful, but it probably needs backing up with a rigidboard slipcase. The multiface opening packs can be very 'sexy' (again, in a packaging situation), but the design must be right. I actually think that the subtle grey/blues of Metamatic would have looked great on board, but (as Rob knows) I am grateful for all the stuff we get from John (and Louis) and the finished article is still a treasure to behold - even if I broke into a sweat trying not to crack disc 2 while wrestling it off it's spider!!!
On't subject of typography, didn't orginally get your point F1 (cos theoretically a 6pt letter has the sames curves etc as a 72pt letter) but got it when our old cartographer friend responded - and yes, it's a bug bear of mine when I'm given a logo in word and asked to 'blow it up'!!!!!
Cheers
See everyone on 29th

No case problems here, except the holder has indented a BCG daisy into the booklet, which looks rather fetching.

I used to work with fonts and stuff as a typesetter - the main challenge would be copying existing styles for scientific journals (with fascinating titles such as "Insect Biochemistry" and "Thin-Walled Structures") EXACTLY - which is perfectly understandable and rewarding but a pain in the ass with the software we used ... long hours with lightboxes. Until we sold the lightboxes and I had to hold sheets of paper up to striplights! Happy days.

Anyway, so like, fonts are great and stuff.

Theoretically nuffink!
See for example this "typography primer" on Adobe's site:
www.adobe.com/education/pdf/type_primer.pdf
(the section you wanna read is "optical sizes")

Type designers always knew that a letterform (glyph) in a huge banner headline needed to be a subtly different shape to look good compared to a tiny wee 6pt one.
Unfortunately in the era of mass-market word processors, type often just got scaled/zoomed to any size, which is just so, well, *gauche*, you know? ;-)

I'm from the other side of the fence.

Personally, I like the digi-pack format too, but what of a few scuffs and marks?
I find the shabby quality of 'lived in' 12" vinyl sleeves etc has a charm of its own.
I tend to 'acquire' music on CDR quite a lot, and often just keep them in plain paper slipcases, with a nice biro tracklisting written on the back.
It's what's INSIDE that's important, and as long as the disc is sufficiently protected I have less of a problem with the state of the packaging.

Since the dawn of the MP3 player, it's a sad but true fact, that many of us - and this certainly includes me - buy a CD, import it into iTunes, then put the CD back on the shelf!

I don't think the last few albums I have bought have even made it into a stereo! One glance through the booklet upon purchase, and then it's almost like it's been archived.

In the past I prided my CD collection, loved the smell of the print and reading through the booklets etc. Nowadays, it's all different. Certainly as my lifestyle has significantly changed over the past few years, so has the way I listen to music. Which is a shame in some respects. Unfortunately there's more to life than collecting and listening to music.

I certainly see and applaud the advantages of being able to import your music library on to your computrer or/and MP3 player, but it's sad that the actual playing of the orignal product doesn't happen so often. On the upside, this keeps everything in prime condition. On the downside, I'm missing out on how the album actually sounds through the stereo system...

Oh, pros and cons!!