Neil Young box set receives Grammy for packaging

Linda Casey -- Packaging Digest, 2/1/2010 2:30:27 PM

Last night, the Neil Young Archives Vol. 1 box set received a Grammy Award for Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Packaging. The titles of creative director, art director and designer are mutually shared amongst Gary Burden, Jenice Heo and Neil Young who collaborated together throughout the design process. 

The design of the Grammy-Award-winning package aims to do more than merely protect the discs during transport. It becomes part of the product itself. On his blog, Burden remarks, "As we worked with the archivists and found more and more material, I began to see the ways that I could make the 'box' more than a box."

In this post, Burden also explains some of the design concepts used to create the music packaging, which include the use of newsprint imagery as a background for the outer carton. The newsprint imagery visually conveys the archive concept and also hints at the box's contents, as a multitude of newspaper articles are republished in the included "journal."

According to Burden, the journal mimics Young's own leather-bound journal. Working with Roswell Bookbinding in Phoenix, Burden, Heo and Young were able to design a silk-screened substrate that looked similar to the journal. Mohawk Via was chosen for the inside pages between it could accept the high ink coverage necessary to replicate the original journal pages, as Burden says, "down to every coffee stain."

The paper's sustainable attributes also compelled Young and Burden to choose to use Via for the disc jackets. "Neil's music has endured and we wanted the Archive package to stand up to that," says Burden. "And we like knowing that we used a paper that is helping our environment to endure."

To read more of Burden's comments about the award-winning packaging, visit http://garyburdenforrtwerk.com/archives/528. To learn more about Via, visit the manufacturer's Website at www.mohawkpaper.com or call 1-800- 843-6455. More information about Roswell Book Binding can be found at www.roswellbookbinding.com.