Contact
Submit your design for us to cover
Please email us if you have a release that you think deserves to appear here. We can’t guarantee a feature, but if it’s a good, great, unusual or interesting design we will.
We’d love to be able to say we’re besieged by record companies, distributors and artists clamoring to have their wonderful designs photographed and written about here on Hard Format. Sadly, that’s not the case. We’ve purchased almost all of the releases covered here with our all too meagre incomes. There are honourable exceptions though: big thank yous to Richard Skelton, Cargo, Ai Records and Fractured Recordings (I’m hoping that list will lengthen eventually).
And don’t get us started on the cost of hosting this site. If you have a cheap or free, but reliable server anywhere, let us know!
Guest posts
If you’d like to do a guest post, email us with one or more pictures of the subject you want to cover and we’ll get back to you with our decision, advice on photography, etc.
Thank you for guest posts so far to Peter Skwiot Smith, Houndworld, Piotr Tkacz and Simon Cummings.
Running this blog can be a bit of a lonely business so don’t hesitate to get in touch…
Why would you want to do that?
- To cheer us up
- To suggest something we should cover
- To do a guest post for the site
- To do a themed collection for the site
- To suggest some way we can improve Hard Format
Either leave a comment here, on one of the posts or email us and you can also follow Colin on Twitter – he’s @eleventhvolume.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Cheers,
Colin and Justin.
Hello!
Great blog. I love the focus on “the package” in music!
Seen this one from Rune: http://www.runegrammofon.com/artists/various/rcd-2072—various_-money-will-ruin-everything-2?
Or this one from Robert Waytt (Domino): http://www.dominorecordco.com/uk/reissues/29-09-08/eps–x5-cds-clam-shell-box-set/?
Best Wishes
Svenn
Hello Svenn, I’ve definitely got my eye on MWRE2, just saving up the pennies! Hadn’t seen the Wyatt box before, can’t tell how lovely the packaging is from that link, but will investigate further. Wyatt is one of those artists I’ve never quite got into, to my shame, but maybe now’s the time. Many thanks for the suggestions.
Hello again
I bought it the last time around. Here are the covers at least, (might not be your style at all of course): http://www.flickr.com/photos/makarellos/1106259791/in/set-72157600297034101/
svenn
Thanks for that Svenn, they do look lovely – one to add to the list!
dear hard format, great site, have been enjoying it very much, i saw here:
http://5-against-4.blogspot.com
that you might be interested in our colin andrew sheffield signatures: http://theartofmemory.blogspot.com/2008/12/broken-light-early-appearance-heard-in.html
let me know if you want some images.
Thanks for that and glad you like the site, Simon is going to do a post about your release soon.
One of my all time favorites because of the simplicity of it.
Boards of Canada – Trans Canada Highway EP
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y259/metal4god88/HPIM1132.jpg?t=1232098629
Another good one, the wrapper was even scratch and sniff
MF Doom – Mmm…Food
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y259/metal4god88/HPIM1134.jpg?t=1232098631
On a few occasions in the past I’ve really enjoyed looking through the archives here: you’ve posted some wonderful designs: it’s great what you’re doing with this site.
And, in case you don’t already know, HARD FORMAT is the subject of a Metafilter post, which will bring some additional visitors to your site, I’m sure.
http://www.metafilter.com/78341/Rumors-of-the-death-of-physical-media“>here)
Hello Samm, really glad you like the site and thanks for letting us know about the Metafilter mention which I didn’t know about.
Good site & inspiring work!
Interesting article I read yesterday about Jeff Jank at Stones Throw who has been doing a series of album covers for Madlib over the years which are literally decomposing:
http://stonesthrow.com/news/2008/12/madlib-beat-konducta-dirty-beats-and-dirty-covers
Wow – they’re incredibly beautiful! Thanks very much for posting that link. I’m going to feature it on the news section, if you want me to update your name from Caps, let me know. Cheers.
Caps is it! (Sort of.) And you’re welcome!
The Numero Group have fantastic covers and packaging for their CDs .A joy to collect.
http://www.numerogroup.com
Thanks I’ll check them out.
The only reason why I would ever buy a CD/DVD/etc. would point to just one thing: the artwork; and the works shown here just reaffirms that I am rather normal. Hah! :)
Ah, and my bad; there’s no www in my url. :\ God knows why I put them in!
Some of my favorite album artwork
http://www.ophibre.com/sounds.html
Hi,
Love the idea, and the stuff on here is great – Just wanted to suggest Tool, 10,000 Days as an incredible piece of music design – it includes a pair of glasses so that you can see the interior of the booklet as 3D images – but not the red/blue tints, as a full colour image. The idea that they’ve gone to that extent with a CD package (and that they managed to convince the record company that it was a good idea) is incredible. Check it out!
I’m aware of the release, hadn’t got round to checking it out physically. Most of the designs on here relate to music we like and neither of us listen to Tool. But we will check it out eventually, thanks for the tip
have you checked out the lovely parcel series at dynamophone..?
I’ve not seen their work, but sincere thanks for the heads up – I’ve just emailed them.
Great site, I always felt that design for music was at the cutting edge of what we do. It’s great to see so much of it in one spot. I now teach design and use album/cd artwork to introduce the history of graphic design to my students. I haven’t looked through your whole site but do you have 8VO’s work for The Durutti Column?
I teach with a guy, Christopher Murphy who runs his own label and has had his cover designs published in a number of books, might be worth checking out his work: http://www.fallt.com
Hey, Just stubled on your site and I think It’s awsome. I always love having hard copies of CD’s with the artwork and all.
An Album that I know of (And couldn’t find on your site) is “Friend and Foe” By Menomena. The CD case has a bunch of cut outs in it and the CD itself is a secret Decoder ring. By rotating the CD, you accually change The image of the front cover. The Artwork is done by Craig Thompson.
Hope I’ve helped you out, and i’m interested to see if you add it to your Archive.
Hello Rick, thanks for the recommendation – I just Google’d it and it does look like an excellent design. However the same Google search revealed that it’s already been covered in depth on Sleevage so we won’t post about it again here. Thanks anyway!
hi-
Don’t know WHERE to begin- as an artist who de3signs covers, books etc-and with a collection of thousands of 12″- a cover junkie for sure.
I’d like much to submit to you my new cd, out on PARVOART in Germany (www.parvoart.org) for your, err, ‘curiosity’…speaking of curious, my museum, the MUSEE VACHE’ is on my MySpace page.AND, on the stephenspera.com are some cd designs and photos of everyone from the Fall to Sun Ra…(also a few in my Facebook…sigh)
Thanks so much for your work! I wish I knew cheaper, more dependable webhosts for you. I use cheap ones, but….
All very best from the Universe of Manhattan
S t e p h
Just to say what a fantastic job you’re doing, this site is truly a valuable resource and a joy to browse. Keep up the great work!
Huw
Steph – many thanks, email us at hardformat.org@gmail.com
Huw – it seems to be in the nature of the site that we don’t get many comments on posts (or maybe we’re doing something wrong!) Each post is a lot of work what with the sourcing, research, photography, post-processing and writing up, so your thanks really are appreciated and encouraging.
Hi,
I’ve been reading your blog regurlarly and wanted to say i find it a fantastic source of inspiration.
I also thought you may be interested in the design work from the Australian Label Preservation http://www.preservation.com.au. I have a couple of there albums and i believe they are more than worthy of a post on here. The typographic sleeves are particularly interesting as well as the unique folding poster CD packages (An A1 poster folded to the size of a cd)
anyhow…
thanks alot
On the Warp-records label website I found a link to this flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/littlepixel/sets/72157594269138651/) where a guy turned some classic CD covers into worn down pocket book covers. Reminded me of your Kruder & Dorfmeister post.
Keep up the sublime
Thanks Joep, yes we’ve seen this, it’s a nice little project. I commented on the Flickr page that he should get really recursive and do a Ghost Box Pelican cover!
Hello Jack, thanks for the recommendation, I’ll have a look. It’s good to know that the packages are folded like that – the image on the website makes it less interesting if you assume it’s just a flat design.
Hallo Hardformat, an addition to your new ECM-Designer-Page. There will be a new ECM-(Cover)-Book in September 2009 : http://www.springer.com/birkhauser/architecture+&+design/book/978-3-03778-157-9
Thanks for the heads up Thomas, just to note that book is from 1990-something onwards and doesn’t cover the earlier designs.
check out the fushitsusha’s double album on PSF (PSF3-4). vinyl’s long out of print, but the cd is a black gatefold sleeve.
it’s my favorite cd in terms of packaging, even among my raster-noton and dust-to-digital records.
Hello Ballyhoo, thanks for the recommendation – do you fancy doing a guest post about it?
thanks for the offer. unfortunately, my copy is a bit worn. i highly recommend the record though! if you’re ever in tokyo check out modern music/psf; it’s a shoebox filled with great japanese psych/noise and sundry rare LPs.
Worn is no problem to Hard Format – in fact it may even be a bonus – see our first ever post…
amazing site!!!
Will you do my album packaging?
I wanted to recommend Stunned Record’s work. They put out tapes and while not all of them are quite there, I am particular fond of the collage-series that they go through with some of their releases. http://stunnedrecords.blogspot.com
And, also, the cassettes themselves are imprinted with glorious illustrations. You really have to hold one of them in your hands to appreciate it.
Thanks a lot Steve, we’ll check them out.
Guys,
YOU NEED to post this!
Unboxing of the Pixies’ MInotaur box set. Mine is yet to arrive but I found this flying around the net:
http://gallery.me.com/shffl#100015&view=null&bgcolor=black&sel=99
Credit goes to the Frank Black forum user Minotaur.
One word: Awesome.
Mr Oliver deliver again.
Hi!
Just found this photo of Muslimgauze “Nadir of Purdah” package made by Rico Tijsen: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ricotijsen/2558319052/ Looks great, Isn’t it? )))) I did this design for my old label. It was handmade digipack strictly limited to 200 copies….. Curious what do you think on this topic?
Thank you!
Lovely design Oleg!
I just found your site and am very glad you did. If musicians want to get into the limited edition marketplace with what they sell to fans, creating great art is going to need to be part of the process.
I’ve been looking for exactly what Hard Format provides!
Thanks!
detail hi-res photo od packaging of Manafon can be found here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/maopopo/sets/72157594491402015/