The ignored beauty of Jewel Cases

The word Jewel Case, is kind of like 'moist'.

Because everyone cringes at it, but used correctly, it's pretty sexy.

If you are still thinking 'eww' then either you still hate jewel cases or I've gone a little too far.

So, I was born in the generation where tapers weren't really relevant, and CD's were king; though by the time it came for me to consume my own music, digital was king. As a 13 year old boy, I couldn't see why I would want to buy a CD: I couldn't afford them, they were blocky, easily broke and like hell I owned a personal CD player.

But, I did have internet access and the need to listen to terrible misogynistic rap and endless pop-punk, so the infamous Limewire was my best port of call. Downloading music just became a habit; so much so that until I started university I had physically bought roughly 3 albums in my life. As soon as I started university I was thrusted into the world of record collecting because my buddy was a massive collector and lived for music. This rubbed off on me, and suddenly I was buying all these terrible 'I've just started collecting' LPs.

For the first time, I had a lust to buy music, to own music and to collect music. I wanted to know I could physically collect this music, but this wasn't for all music. I still didn't want CDs, just like everyone else in the world. I wanted records, they are huge, beautiful and highly varied, everything CDs are not.

My collection is a little larger now

Now with a 50+ strong music collection to be mildly proud of, I'm starting to dislike CDs less, but they certainly don't hold any real place in my heart. I'm also currently designing an EP that will be release in a jewel case, so I'm slowly warming to these plastic cases of cringe—slowly.

As I work with this format, I find a few things I like about it; but the most annoying part about it is that nobody cares about this certain part. This part is know by every designer and every consumer, it is a beautiful space for creativity and everyone ignores it—even me.

Remember these guys?

Looking above this you'll see the basic format of a CD, which honestly doesn't look all that great does it? But do you see that little frame? That bit of ankle? That bit of sexy? No?

Any better? It's that little half inch tall frame on the far left of the CD. It's always visible on the front cover and it's always ignored. It's almost always just a plain colour, following on with the rest of the design and doing nothing interesting at all.

Even David Bowie doesn't do anything interesting with this area. EVEN DAVID.
You could do so much with this space—I've tested it!

So if you are wanting to exploit this space, here is a small list of things you could do:

• Put a pen or pencil in there
• Fill it with small dice
• Put 3D type in there
• Have a rolled up poster in there
• Fill it with sweets
• Fill it with beer
• Fill it with tears
• Fill it with the blood of virgins

That pretty much covers it.