Creativity For Your CD/Digital Booklet

With each passing day CD booklets become more obsolete. As the new trend focuses on digital booklets, musicians are still follow the same boring template of yesterdays print material for jewel casing into the new era. Thank you sections, producer credits, lyric, and contact information- what the hell is interesting about that? Purchasers for the most part, already have an idea about the band and don’t care to know about all this worthless information. Special sections on the bands website, fan blogs, or Wikipedia articles can reveal the lyric, producer, or thank you credits so if it’s used inside the CD booklet it’s nothing more than a boring waste of space that followed a mindless non-creative trend. Don’t waste space because wasted space means wasted print cost, which equates to wasted money. Creativity is the key to generating fresh CD or Digital booklet ideas that separate your band from the millions of others following a boring trend.

I recently worked with a band who stole a page straight out of the creativity playbook. The musicians all had deep respect for their individual heritage and family roots, which believe me was pretty eclectic. Instead of simply thanking their families in the CD booklet’s ‘Special Thanks’ section, the band contacted a genealogy expert. The group turned the standard: “thanks to Mom and Dad, Aunt June, and my brother Mark” portion into the most creative feature of the entire album. Genealogy company, Family Jewels, worked with the group to generate historical data for each band members ancestral roots. Because the company focuses on the story telling behind each ancestor, as opposed to a list of names and birthdays, the result was a really cool looking family tree that personally thanked each family member and their contribution to the groups historical influence. This crumb of creativity turned the bands booklet into a talked about marketing tool which generated blog write ups, indie radio interviews, and ultimately an increase in album sales.

Had I been a musician like my ancestors Biase, Salvatore, and Cosimo I’m certain they would have enjoyed me paying homage to their musical immigration. Unfortunately for me I don’t play an instrument and my voice always sounds scratchy; but at least I can encourage musicians to use this creative paradigm. As for me, the bands CD booklet inspired me to buy one of their albums and generated an obsession to find the actual ship my family traveled to Ellis Island on – The Hamburg


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