Continuing my ramble through old design jobs, this was undoubtedly one of the more complex projects I got to work on, but equally one of the most enjoyable. Having done quite a few projects for them b y this time EMI were happy to give me control over all aspects of the packaging and hardly requested any changes, and it kept me busy across the end of 2010 and into 2011. The release was an attempt to gather up for the very first time in one place ALL Deep Purple’s BBC sessions, from early June 1968 to the final one cut two years later. In that time the band had changed line-up so there were two distinct eras and length wise it split quite neatly into two discs.
It was a huge task just trying to get decent tapes. While the BBC had saved a few (and wiped others), transcription audio discs for others survived with fans. A couple of numbers had gone altogether and one or two more existed in such poor off-air form as to be impossible to clean up. Nevertheless 27 tracks were rounded up.
Format wise, having ignored vinyl for several years (and scrapped their UK pressing facilities in between times), EMI were getting back in to limited vinyl runs again, so I could go to town a bit. The final limited edition version comprised two single vinyl albums with inner sleeves, an album size booklet, plus two paper sleeved CDs (and six labels!) all in a sturdy outer box. The music was also issued separately on a regular price double CD set which required separate packaging.
I was recently doing some data backing up work and while moving files to the cloud, rummaged through to find enough images to illustrate this job.
As always I started off with pencil on paper (I haven’t yet dug out the job bag where those are filed) and from there worked up a couple of the ideas for the LP box using Photoshop. One of these with a series of scrapbook type images arranged in a grid is shown below. I tried a few other ideas, of which one got worked up into a very rough visual that survived. But it only showed one of the two line-ups and felt a little forced when I went back to it (above). These were done early days as we tried to get a handle on what the package would contain and by the time a more certain track listing had emerged I had been able to settle on a final look.
One early idea involved high contrast images of the band members culled from a Japanese vinyl cover of the era, which I then replicated with those for the second band line up, to make an double image which could be used across a number of elements of the set. With an overlay offset and eventually a gloss varnish, it was intended to have a look of quality with a large purple matt solid around. I am a sucker for heritage graphics so using an old EMI logo of the time was a must for me and happily they went along with this. Type was done in what I knew as Eurostyle in Letraset / typesetting days but seems now to be marketed under the name Square as well. There was a bit of a connection back to a much earlier cover I did for EMI when they released Deep Purple’s two 1970s BBC In Concert shows for the first time, and I used the same font for that cover. The image at the top of the page show these elements and is from the finished art for the box lid, hence the edges and cutouts for assembly. The packaging by the way was produced in Europe along with the contents.
I am always fascinated by the old reel tape boxes and after a while decided to try and use two EMI branded ones from my own little collection of the correct time period to work with. These I scanned in and then recreated over the top in new layers in Photoshop. This kept the feel but enabled me to produced nice clean graphics to use. One of the original tape boxes is shown above.
And above is how the album front and back looked by the end of the work, again off the final production proof. I like to involve fans in these projects and a couple of never before published colour shots emerged from them (hello Tonny) so we licensed one for the first album.
Another rare shot was cleared to use on the second album, the front of which is shown above. I really prefer to use rare material rather than just license from the regular photo agencies as everyone has seen that material a number of times. For the background I used a great tape reel box image in shades of blue, and an EMI box logo from circa 1969.
That left the two inner LP sleeves. It says something for EMI that they costed in special inners, many labels would have just stuck white paper bags in as these cannot be seen until the shrink-wrap is off! For these I delved into the old imagery of the BBC transcription album service. Back in the 1960s, the BBC used to make their own vinyl albums up featuring popular music recorded for sessions across their UK stations. The resulting compilations were posted out to radio stations around the globe in generic BBC sleeves with distinctive graphics redolent of the 50s and 60s. As much of the music on the Deep Purple set had only survived on such discs, it seemed a neat idea to generate a similar design for the inner bag, using fonts which matched as closely as I could get them. I then pushed the colours across to tint an appropriate line up photograph on the other side. The photographs I had found in EMIs archives on a visit I was lucky enough to have made down to Hayes. I have no idea what happened to this amazing place after EMI was ripped apart.
Problems? The only real issue for me was the lack of physical proofs, though I appreciate this is an archaic process for most people nowadays! For my first few EMI projects they had run litho proofs off but this was not a cheap process and as vinyl runs shrunk, in the digital era they were rarely used for specialist reissues and you got digital screen proofs usually. It did mean a couple of the photographs came out a little dark which could have been corrected with litho proofing. Overall though the end result was quite impressive and seemed to go down well with fans. It is also becoming quite a pricey item to buy second hand, as the run was limited to what EMI Sales judged was the demand from retail prior to production, which is how they and many other labels worked – and still do. Nobody wants to keep back catalogue any more.
In those days the internet connections here were not reliable or quick enough for jobs of this size (indeed it took another ten years for BT to get fibre broadband to our property on the edge of Sheffield), so I burnt everything onto four CDRs and shipped those down. And kept a set for myself just in case. Today hard drive and cloud storage means we can back big projects up more securely, though whether they will ever be needed again is anyone’s guess. I have watermarked the images though as the bootleggers have been plundering the BBC sessions (and my artwork in some cases) for various “limited edition” pirate LPs for a while now.
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