Youth Attack released this insanely packaged ARTS lp a few months back. i've actually been really excited to get this record up on the blog, but have also been totally putting it off due to the amount of effort / photography required of me to properly document this beast. what can i say, sometimes laziness gets the best of me.... also, i had to use my crappy point and shoot on this since i was recharging the battery for my real camera, so my apologies in advance if you find the photos not being quite up to snuff.
i have to say upfront that this is one of the most highly detailed and extraordinary examples of modern record packaging that i have ever seen. for the outer jacket, ARTS went with a rather unconventional design. instead of having one side open to slide the record into, this jacket unfolds into a five panel sheet. this is offset printed black ink on a 100lb coated cover stock and then die cut. here is a shot of the front cover, do you think it's supposed to be a vagina? ok....
a shot of the back cover folded up. beautifully crafted typography and lots of negative space.... perfect.
the back panel comes in as a close second. love this naive monogram they came up with, and the pencil line execution makes it a total crusher....
unfold the back panel to get to the record, here is a shot of the jacket opened up with the record inside....
yes, of course there is something printed on the inside of the jacket! i guess this guy is the gatekeeper?
the record comes housed inside a double sided printed dust sleeve. this feels more like an 80lb uncoated paper, and it was printed black on the inside. the artwork on this sleeve has a similar ornate feeling that we saw used in the ARTS lettering on the back panel of the jacket. i kind of like this idea of mirroring the same design on both sides of the sleeve and then slightly changing up the content. interesting....
the lyric sheet is hands down my favorite part of this record layout. this is a 8.5" x 11" sheet offset printed black and folded. this image on cover panel fucking slays me... what a beautiful hand drawn symbol framed out with some simple pencil lines. so perfect...
the back panel comes in as a close second. love this naive monogram they came up with, and the pencil line execution makes it a total crusher....
unfold this panel for the lyric sheet, in a blackletter font of course. it's actually a really nicely balanced lyric sheet.... the songs are clearly organized, it has a good mix-up of hand drawn elements through out the layout, and then also some random stuff happening on the bottom right corner to keep it interesting.
A side label is basically the back cover of the jacket, but hey, it works...
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