Folk Tale

The packaging concept/design for Folk Tale emerged through discussions and close collaboration with our client, Christy Moore. Generally identified as a folk musician, Christy Moore makes a more meaningful distinction between timeless (genre defying) songcraft and the vagaries of popular music. The design concept consciously attempts to avoid the visual clichés associated with folk music and to position Christy Moore as a contemporary performer/interpreter.

The brief centered on Chirsty's interest in the communicative potential of abstract/minimalist art. A keen collector of art, Christy (and ourselves) were fascinated by the formal qualities that much folk art shares with the visual experiments/investigations of the early Bauhaus practitioners. Much like the building blocks of music (notes, chords, rhythm, duration, etc.) we endeavored to develop rich/complex visual compositions out of essential familiar and basic geometric forms.

A simple yet rigorous visual scheme underpins the design of the CD packaging. Due to the large print run, the DigiPak format, stocks, printer and printing processes were largely controlled/dictated by Sony European Services (Bertelsmann / BMG). We had a limited choice of paper stocks. We did however request that PANTONE fluorescent inks be substituted for standard CMYK inks during the printing/production of all elements. The overprinting of the PANTONE fluorescent inks – used in mixes that contained at least one 100% value/tint – produced the pure/vibrant tones that were achieved throughout the CD packaging. As per the conversations we had with our client concerning colour theory, the CD packaging references Goethe's colour triangle, in that no Black is used in the geometric compositions – Black is only used for text and in photographic reproductions in the CD packaging.