I think the packaging for Travelogue has to be the best CD package design I've ever seen. There may be others out there, but I haven't seen them. The box itself that holds everything is sturdy but there's no plastic involved. The texture of the stock (whether it's the cardboard/paper or the ink used to print it) is smooth and silky. Then inside you've got a book of lyrics and, best of all, the hard-cover little book inside with a CD on each side and the wonderful pictures of Joni's paintings. I love the look of it and the feel of it. I guess I'm a bit of a packaging freak. My Dad worked in the corrugated paper industry where there's not a lot of artistic license (how many ways can you reinvent the beer carton?) but I remember how he had the plant's artists come up with a design for a bed for our dog and, when I was in Grade 1, a "TV" that I brought to school that the kid could sit inside and do a show for the class (singing, reciting, a puppet show, or whatever), so the kid could be "on TV."
Since then, I have to say I admire a well-thought-out package, one that makes sense for what it contains, but that also has a sort of beauty on its own. Like, for example, those tetrahedron juice containers. There's a product you can buy in Canada, at least in the Toronto area, called "Lola". It's a fruit drink that you can either drink, or freeze and eat like a popsicle. The container is a tetrahedon and it's brilliant. The other kind of thing I love is boxes that open up and there's another inside, and another inside that. Like the Russian Matrushka dolls. Last Christmas, I gave my daughter a pair of earings but I wrapped the first box, inside another box, wrapped; then again, inside another box. It was just for fun and so she wouldn't guess (right away, that is) what it was. I just think the package for Travelogue, the design and the artwork and everything, are so amazing, that Joni (if it's her design and I think it's at least partly hers) should win some kind of award for that. ===== Catherine Toronto ______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
