Design Context

Just came across The Ghostly Store and their special edition packaging for their 100th release: Manzoku: The Ghostly Bento. Only fifty boxes were handmade, so it’s a good bet that a lot of time, thought and craftsmanship was put into this limited edition release. It’s great to see the labels/merchants get passionate about their packaging. I shall be returning to the ethereal online presence of this music label quite often.

The most recent Woodstock Box Set called Woodstock: 40 Years on: Back to Yasgur's Farm (6CD, Limited Edition) marks its 40-year anniversary. The 40 Years on Woodstock Box Set feautres a comprehensive 77-song, six-CD set in chronological order of performance and includes 38 previously unreleased recordings, including the Grateful Dead, The Who, Tim Hardin, Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe & The Fish, and others, and Yasgur's legendary breakfast speech. To assemble the most comprehensive document of the myth-steeped weekend, the boxed set's co-producer Andy Zax pored over every inch of multitrack tape in search of the strongest parts of each of the 33 sets. 'The way we approached all of the material was as if it was a cinema verite documentary-the raw record of the event,' Zax says. The set also boasts a considerable amount of ancillary material sprinkled throughout the discs-stage announcements, lysergic babble, the sounds of rain, a cameo appearance by Abbie Hoffman, and the graciousness of Max Yasgur's address to the crowd, heard for the first time in its entirety. Hear the best concert ever in this incredible box set!

Listen up, Ringo Beatles fans -- your holiday gift has just been located, and it's on aisle 17 in Bloomingdale's. The somewhat janky limited edition collector's box is a dream come true for fanatics of the Fab Four, packing 13 original Beatles' CDs, an engraved guitar pick, two masters and the "Love" CD -- none of which are available via the iTunes Music Store, mind you. Just 2,500 of the $795 sets are available, but -- humorously enough -- you'll be stuck ripping and transferring every last disc onto your individually numbered, etched-with-a-Beatles-logo 120GB iPod classic. Ah well, at least this scenario lets you choose your own bitrate, right?

Other than having a handmade, hand silkscreened, and autographed cd sleeve, this limited edition project definately holds weight for its musical content as well.  There are only 20 copies made.