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Disc Design Critique
Windham Hill Artists: "A Winter's Solstice IV"
 
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| Fantastic photography graces the cover of this compilation, courtesy of a fellow by the name of Jeff Nicholas. The cover photo is reproduced on the disc using CMYK screen printing; 85 lpi doesn't allow the subtlest detail of the original to come through, but since the image contains a lot of contrast, the spirit of the photograph is preserved.
The disc would look even better if the designer had set the words "WINDHAM HILL ARTISTS" differently. A serif typeface was selected, and the type was set to reverse out of a multi-ink background; misregistration and fill-in have compromised the type's legibility. For comparison, observe the difference between the positive, sans serif, one color printing for the words "WINDHAM HILL RECORDS", below the logo. |
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Serif type, reversed out of a multi-ink background.
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Sans serif type, positive, single ink.
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| The positive type is less than 1/3 the size of the negative, yet it printed much more cleanly.
Possible solutions to the negative type problem:
- change the background to plain black, so that the type only reverses out of one color.
- select a bold sans serif face, without thin stems that will fill in.
Of course, if we changed the box to black, it would no longer match the album title color any more, so it might be necessary to change the album title to black as well. Replacing blue with black doesn't change the balance of the elements on the page, since that blue was already dark.
Hmmm...
On the other hand, the album title, being quite large, didn't suffer the same kind of damage as the smaller type did as a consequence of misregistration. And the words "Windham Hill Artists" aren't the most important ones in the layout. Perhaps it's best to accept the likelihood of potential technical problems, rather than lose that exquisite blue. What to do, what to do? |
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