• RELEASED: Apr 2007
• FORMAT: CD / CD promo / edited CD promo / 7″ / Ltd 2×7″ promo / Serato Whitelabel.net DL
• LABEL: NINJA TUNE
• CAT No.: ZENCD123 / ZENCD123P / ZEN7123P / ZEN7123PR
• DESIGN: Openmind
• PHOTOGRAPHY: Gem Pope
• SPOTTERS DELIGHT: Hidden track at the start of the finished CD, you have to press play and hold down reverse to get to it. The original promo CDs had a different track at one point which was removed at the 11th hour due to licensing issues. The 3 track download version was the first official release on Serato’s Whitelabel.net promo site.
• EXTRA ZEN: ninjatune.net page / BUY / Serato Whitelabel.net page
  

It was time to rejig the look of the Solid Steel mix CD series, I wanted to keep the slipcase idea but make the overall look of the covers less busy and more slick looking. I decided to make a more generic slipcase that could be used for all the mixes to come, with only changes made to the colour, track listing and barcode. Also a die cut window in the cover would show through the main graphic of the booklet inlay through the inserted jewel case inside. Add to this some spot varnish to keep the ‘soundwave rings’ graphic that had been present since the beginning but was beginning to get a bit much graphically and you have a package that looks a little bit more special than a straight jewel case CD.

We had made the whole mix on Serato Scratch Live software and wanted to include some graphic elements that alluded to that in the design without making it seem like it was an advert for the brand. Their ‘virtual turntable’ was the basis for the main cover graphic as was the red, black and grey colour scheme. A balance of old / new / analogue/ digital was the idea as well and this was shown by close up photos of 78 rpm discs as background texture, not because we used them but because you can see the grooves much more easily on these discs and they have their own visual quality. Photos of DK and I were also needed but we didn’t want the usual ‘two guys in the studio’ or ‘standing in from of a wall’ type shots so we shot images of us alternately against collections of blank record sleeves which were then added to in Photoshop with sleeves of tracks we had used in the mix as well as sections of our faces.

A kind of timeline runs through some of the booklet against a waveform graphic extracted from the mix so as to break up the endless text and credits that we wanted to cram in. Another waveform, that is actually the image of the hidden track that appears on the disc, was also used but ‘looped’ on itself to form a kind of ‘starburst’ image which was used in various other places on the cover. This was also a throwback to the first ‘Now, Listen’ artwork which was based on stereo demonstration record graphics and, coupled with the larger ‘NOW’ of the title, alluded to those kind of records.

My favourite of the Solid Steel series and a bit of a version excursion with regular CD, promo CD, edited radio mix, unmixed radio selections, 7″ plus double promo 7″ and Serato control record.