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Manufacturing
& Marketing
Your Own CD

Part 2 (of 3)

by Shelley Jacobsen

Graphics and Film

After covering what to watch for with your master, and how to deal with CD manufacturers from last months column, I want to briefly touch on graphics and film this month. If you are going to hire a professional photographer to take pictures of yourself and or the members of your group, take a cassette or cd of your music to him or her when you go to discuss your expectations of the project with the photographer. This will give them a feel for the type of music you are marketing and hopefully help them envision the type of image you are trying to portray.

Feel free to bring in a cd cover or pictures of other projects from other artists that have caught your eye and explain to them what it is that appeals to you with that type of layout. Again, this will help him or her get a feel for your project and your expectations.

Don't get a different hair cut or style the day of the shoot. If you don't feel comfortable with your new style, it will most definitely come across in the pictures.

If you notice that a humongous zit has sprouted up on the end of your nose when you wake up on the day of the shoot, don't feel obligated to go forward with the shoot. Simply call up the studio and explain your situation....something came up and you'll have to reschedule. ;-) When the photographer is playing around with the set of the shoot, try at all costs to avoid plants. They look great in the garden, and on the front lawn, but man do they look silly when it appears you have a fig leaf sprouting out of the side of your head. This again is something that happened to me and I had to get my graphic artist to blacken out the set beside and behind me so that I wouldn't look like an alien.

Stay away from the color white. If you are dressed completely in white it will make you look washed out. Try to bring a change of clothing with you. At least 3-4 outfits that you can change into.

When you have decided on the art work and the pictures that you want to include on the booklet of your cd, have your designer or graphic artist make up a mock insert booklet for you to review. Make sure that you give the artist all of the text that you will be using including logos such as DDD, MAPL, etc.... Especially remember to assign an area on the back of the cd booklet for your bar code. If you are planning on selling your cd's at gigs only, then chances are you won't need a bar code. But if you will be seating them in records stores, you will definitely need one.

The bar code helps retailers keep track of the sales of your cd. Bar codes aren't expensive. I think I paid around $50.00 for mine at the time and the code was placed on the back of the booklet. Actually the RDR Music Group took care of all of that for me. I just specified where I wanted the code to be placed and they did the rest. I think most manufacturers will provide this service to their clients. Once you have received the mock booklet from the designer, proof it carefully. Then, when you are convinced there aren't any spelling mistakes, have someone else proof it for you. Especially watch for the spelling in names of people that have contributed to your project. There is nothing worse than spelling someone's name incorrectly. Also double check the copyright info to make sure that the dates and writer info is correct.

Info to include on your booklet:

Information to include on your cd jacket is as follows:

• Barcode
• Copyright info
• MAPL ex...(if music and lyrics were made and composed in Canada eh?)
• Writer and publisher credits
• Contact Information
• Web site URL
• Record label info

If you are using a 1-800 distributing number, be sure to place it on the jacket. If you are going to have the manufacturer design your booklet for you, make sure that you send them a mock up design of how you want your layout in the actual booklet. You can forward the actual prints, color slides or negatives to them.

If you decide on using your own graphic designer, you must follow certain guidelines set out by the manufacturer . For example...here are some guidelines that were set out to us by the RDR Music Group when forwarding final film:

• Film should be negative, right reading, emulsion down.
• Screen ruling must be 133/150 lines per square inch.
• Allow 1/8'' bleed on all trim sides.
• Registration marks must be on film.
• Final negatives must be separated into process colors (cyan,magenta,yellow,black)
• You have to supply a color key proof.

When you are deciding on print colors for your cd label design, try to stick with two colors only. There is a good reason for this. I initially wanted five colors on mine until I was quoted the actual cost of doing that......I would have had to remortgage the house if I had decided on going with my initial design. If you go with more than two colors on your cd design (the graphics on the disc itself) you could be charged up to 50 cents per cd per additional color...I don't think so! It didn't take me long to come to my senses. I was curious and checked out my own cd collection at home and noticed that even the big name artists and bands out there usually go with just two colors on their cd design. Except for U2..have you ever checked out some of their cd graphics? I think I counted up to 7 colors on one of their cd's. Now I'm jealous!

When you finally have your package ready to send off to the manufacturer, inclose a mock up booklet with your pictures you will be using along with the jazz zip drive tape that you have saved all of your files onto or another type of format they accept. Most manufacturers accept documents created in:

Mac Environment:

• QuarkXpress
• Illustrator
• Pagemaker
• Freehand

• Corel Draw
• QuarkXpress
• Photoshop
• Pagemaker



• CD-R
• 800K or 1.4 MB Disk
• Syquest cartridges 44MB, 88MB, 200MB
• Optical Disc 1300MB 5 1/4

Turn Around Time: If you supply the manufacturer with final print, it takes six working days to print your jacket. If you give them an electronic file to output your film, it will take 3 working days to image your film and 6 working days to print your jackets.

*Stay tuned for part 3 of 3 on "Manufacturing Your Own Cd" where we will be dealing with "Marketing and Distributing your CD".

Continue to Part 3

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