Sampler: Contemporary Music Graphics

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Summary: Get this book!
Review: I am an Art Director and a DJ.I Like Techno art and stuff very much.If you are into this kind of art you gotto buy this one.And if you like Designers Republic, Tomato and other English Design houses and dig for their designs GET THIS BABE!

Rating:
Summary: Nicely Done Overview of Current Trends
Review: This well-designed paperback provides an overview of the latest in CD design and packaging, with an emphasis on work on English labels. Shaughnessy's introduction provides a brief, but cogent overview of the history of record sleeve design and its various influences. He views music packaging as the only area where graphic arts can flourish and be highly visible, while retaining their artistic integrity (ie. not being subject to the dictates of the product). Similarly, he finds sleeve design to be one of the few areas where graphic designers have traditionally had great freedom of expression--although he notes this is increasingly less the case, with the emergence of multinational media conglomerates and their slavish devotion to the bottom line. Unsurprisingly, he locates the best contemporary work in the realm of independent record labels. Indeed, only the most music-obsessive (think Dick in High Fidelity) will recognize 90% of the pieces collected for display. Personally, the style reflected in the CD sleeve selections is not generally to my liking (with a few big exceptions, such as the Massive Attack items on page 95). The packaging tends to be far more innovative, for example, the Pan-Sonic Arctic Rangers "Self-Assembly Soundscape Set" (pp. 75-76) is a work of genius. All in all, it's definitely worth a look, and the bibliography is especially useful.