We have a variety of cloth and material types to choose from, depending on the look, feel and artwork you are envisioning.

There are several ways to hold your disc(s) : trays, glued on pockets & sleeves, swinging sleeves and hubs.

Trays are a very popular option for folding the disc. You can choose from the following types:
Clear Plastic or Solid Color
Clear Plastic: 5", 7", 7" Dbl disc ...and you can use two 5" trays to make a 10"
Paper Trays: 5" only, 100% recycled paper cork hub
Foam Tray: awesome for creating a well for the disc or a usb, custom made in any size

Paper Trays
A variation on the plastic tray is the Natural Paper Tray. Paper trays are made from 100% recycled paper and have a cork hub. It's a very earthy look:

Foam trays are a fun way to hold discs and we can create a custom size package. Black is a popular option but we can also apply a printed wrap over it. Check these out:

.

Foam hubs are a great way to mount your disc, showing it off in its full glory. Hubs can stick on any surface and are available in black or white. We can also do clear gel hubs. Hubs are great alternative to plastic trays.


Cork hubs are another option:



Pockets are a popular way to hold the discs in many types of CD and DVD packaging, since the standard jacket construction style inherently gives you both sides of a pocket. Pockets in a book package are generally up-facing or out-facing. The out-facing pocket style is also very popular in LP disc packaging / cd albums.

DVD Packaging and Separate Companion book in a slipcase

Companion booklets are cut the the exact size of the disc packaging, then are inserted alongside the packaging into a slipcase. These are usually perfect bound, which allows spine printing.

Saddle stitch is the traditional way to create booklets for disc packaging. Basically, saddle stitch means "stapled". Typical page count for saddle stitch is 8 to 24 panels*, but twice that is not uncommon. The page count for saddle stitch almost always includes the covers. If the cover needs to be a different stock, the inner pages can be run separately. Most of our booklets are full color throughout, including Pantones, although black-only is an option, too.

Perfect binding is the process of creating books by gluing a block of pages at the spine, which gives a square back. As any reader of Dune on paperback can confirm, a perfect bound book can have a nearly unlimited number of pages, but for CD and DVD projects, the higher-end page count is 100 to 200 panels. As an entry point, we'll say 40 panels and up make a good thickness for this type of construction. It gives a square spine and has at least a bit of bulk to it. Page count for perfect-bound books excludes the covers, as the covers are made from heavier stock and provide the spine.
*Note: "Panel" or "Page" both refer to one side of a printed sheet. A single print spread will typically contain 4 panels.

Slipcases can be as simple as slip-sleeves (TUBE, open at both ends), usually allowing you to slide the package in from the side.

If you want your slipcase to open from one side, with a spine and be more like a BOX, we can do that, too.

Side-load box-style slipcases can be further improved by having printing on the inside surfaces. You can go with lining, in which flaps of the outer stock are folded in and glued, or you can opt to do 2-sided printing to the stock.

If you need the ultimate in protection and presentation, you can have your slipcase made in the hard bound style, made with heavy board, wrapped with fully-printed stock of your choice, including all the finishes and special effects you could ever want. Die Cut / knock outs are especially fun in slipcases!


If we make them with a chipboard core (properly called a box at that point rather than a slipcase), we can wrap them with fabric like this:

CD and DVD book covers can be made using the vintage LP packaging style, which is very similar to standard book binding / hardbound book construction. For a CD or DVD book project, we build in an LP pocket (one or two). The difference between a standard hardbound book cover and a vintage LP pocket is that the core material is two pieces of thinner stock. Forgot about that style of record cover? Take a look at one of your old 1950s or '60s Verve or Blue Note LPs.

Cover with two LP style pockets, hardcover construction style

Fabric is a great medium for basic silkscreening - simple design, usually 1C black ink. However, another way to go is to do foil stamping on the fabric. it's a great contrast. Consider these examples of foil:



You can also do some fun things like die cuts and embossing - check this book out, done on a cloth cover:


Here's a foil stamping color swath we have from our manufacturer