CD Cover Design for Christian Devotional Songs Album

“All things are possible – with God” says Prince Solomon and Ummal Ahum – his solo Christian devotional songs album re-iterates that.

Here is my design memoir of his CD and jewel case artwork. It was an interesting project as I had never designed a CD jewel case graphic before. With no design brief or sample ideas, my dear friend gave me the best set of words to start work – “do whatever you want”. And I did whatever I liked.

From image search, artwork, content layout to spell check, it was great fun all along. My most happiest moment was when the CDs and jewel cases were ready. The results were excellent. And it meant a lot for me to get it right, the first time. The hidden lesson in this was to – keep following your heart.

Prince had toiled hard to put this album together. He wrote, composed and sang the holy songs in Tamil. I was more than happy to have him take the next step in his efforts. My lack of Tamil knowledge had me loggerheads with him for I could not understand the depth of the songs, nor could select the Tamil font for placing it appropriately. Thanks to his patience and perseverance, that hurdle was crossed.

The biggest challenge was to find or create an appropriate graphic for this album which could convey emotion. I wanted it devoid of symbols and the usual trappings that make it look like a typical hymn CD which is so prevalent in India. The album had to give the buyer a sense of peace and higher purpose. When I conveyed him my idea of a devotional album, he was not sure what to expect – but still kept his faith in me. Thank you for that, Prince.

Not many images came close to the theme of the album and we did not want it to look like a typical hymn CD.  The image had to convey serenity, peace, understanding, strenght and inner joy. Budgetary restrictions led us to a free image website where John Nyberg had a beautiful image – a portion of which was used to get that required look and feel. Thank you, John for this wonderful imagery.

Indeed it is hard to satisfy oneself before submitting self-approved work. Here are some of the swatches of the design options that I experimented with before settling for the sunset design.

Excitement@work paid off. After a brief waiting time the CDs and covers came through though I could not get to see them for a long time. Before Prince left India, he handed over to me a discreet cover. Those were the bunch of CDs and I could not have been happier. The outcome was beautiful. The CD case and the CDs came through as per the specs. The printing on case and CD was of good quality which made the image stand out well.

A job well done. Pat on the back. And like he said – all things are possible with God.