Preliminary Mock-Ups

After researching Merzbow some more and seeing examples of other CD package designs, I have a better idea of what I want to do with my project. We discussed in class that the overall package design should not only reflect the music, but other underlying themes as well. The idea that I had would be to package the CDs in a box that would resemble a recipe box. The CDs would each be in an individual sleeve that would be equivalent to a "recipe card". However, instead of having a recipe on the card, it will have information about the CD on it. The cards might also have information about the bird the CD is based on, but that would depend on how much room I end up having. I also wanted to add an additional element to the package, so I am planning on adding additional recipe cards, except there will actually be a vegan recipe on these cards. The whole box will be hand-made out of a strong paper board, but possibly covered in thin balsa wood to make it more presentable. I'm still trying to decide what other elements I could add to make the package more unique or collectable to people.

So far I have made a mock-up of the box in the size that it would ideally be. After constructing the box, I realize that I might have to adjust the dimensions somewhat after seeing how the CDs will actually fit into it. I've also made a few "recipe cards" to see what size they need to be to fit into the box. After working with the design and the mock-up a little more, I'm sure I'll make a few changes, but this is where I am at so far.

This is a sketch that I made to figure out the dimensions of the box and recipe card to determine how to make the mock-up.

Thoughts So Far

I never realized how significant cover art can be for music. After reading "The Initial Moment" I got a better understanding of the importance of cover art and how this has been changing. I thought it was interesting when the author mentioned that album cover art is only one of the many platforms now for the artist's visual expressions. Musician's can now show their music through television, the internet, and now mobile devices. I think that even though people don't necessarily buy CD's or albums anymore, cover art will still play an important role in the identity of music because people will still want a visual connection with the music they listen to. We mentioned in class that cover art adds another level of interaction with the music that also extends the meaning of the music to the listener.

After listening to Merzbow's music for a little while (as much as I could handle for one sitting anyway), my first initial reactions were confusion, dark, and aggression. However, after reading about Merzbow and how he creates the music, I realized there was more to the music than what you initially hear. Some of his music actually has a rhythmic beat and drumming in it, so it's not just random noises. Other pieces has actually bird sounds among all of the other noise. I read from one sources that Merzbow sometimes uses untuned guitars and drum kits in his music. So even though most of the time the music sounds like feedback or just a jumble of sounds, there is actually some thought behind it and some sort of organization to what sounds go together.

I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do yet for my project, but I have a couple ideas that could turn into something. I read in one of the sources that each of the 13 Japanese Birds CDs was named after a native Japanese bird. What's also interesting about it is that the birds are ordinary, every day birds instead of exotic ones. These birds are usually overlooked, or seen as harmful and sometimes even abused. This relates back to Merzbow's work with animal rights and PETA. For this project, I want to somehow incorporate each of these birds more in detail rather than just in the title of the CD. This way, the overall experience of the music along with the art and packaging relate to a bigger issue than the music itself.