The first batch of test prints are here to compare old jobs with new cardstock options.

A whiter white board which will now be unlaminated (no more plastic) and a brown/kraft board which is the best looking/feeling I’ve offered.

A lot more testing and set up behind the scenes, but, progress…

I’ve not posted anything in over 2 months, life definitely got in the way of restarting ACDSleeve. I guess major life changes can take more of your time and attention than expected, but, I’m getting down to it now.

This box has a range of ideas I designed/developed earlier this year, which needs sifting through, roughly 6 CD and 6 cassette options which all being well should be ready to go when I can officially relaunch this, as well as some weird ideas which need work but there’s something there. I’ll be going through these and posting a few of them in the coming weeks, some are redesigned options I used to offer, others are completely original ideas not found anywhere else.

Still a hell of a lot to get done, finding working space, looking into and buying equipment, finding various suppliers, sorting the website…but it will be moving along, just much slower than expected.

15 years ago today I was working on the very first run of packaging I’d ever made. It wasn’t under the ACDSleeve name as it wasn’t even a “business” then, just an idea I’d come up with for a pop up CD case, it was credited to my tumblr page where I’d been posting design work while unemployed and looking for work.

I made all 100 of these in the space of just over a day, with equipment that wasn’t fit for purpose, using solvent glue which sent me a bit mad, and using techniques which are not good at all. It was a slog, but it was worth it. The photo of them boxed up was taken at gone 1am on the day of the show they were for. I won’t go into how important the EP/band are to me as I gush over Blakfish far too much, but for these to be available and sell out at their last ever show is still massive to me.

There has been a 7 year hiatus, but it’s crazy to think that back when I was 22 with no idea what I was doing I was sowing the seeds of what consumed my life for the next 8 years and what I’m going to be jumping back into this year.

It’s been 7 years since I shut down ACDSleeve and in that time there’s always been a thought of “what if”. What if I gave it another go with everything I’d learned in packaging design/production. What if I had the time and resources to actually think of it as a business, not a hobby that got out of control and improved pretty much everything across the board. What if I could offer packaging for anything, which I’ve been doing as a job for the last 7 years, not just music (but always music).

I initially looked into this around 18 months ago when I got made redundant, reset up the Instagram account again after taking over the old account as a personal one. It wouldn’t have worked back then, being forced into that decision rather than it being a choice. Thinking that the grass is greener with a steady income at a job, when for me, I don’t think it is, this is what I do best.

Many factors in my life have aligned and I’m going for it. I handed in my notice at my job just over a week ago and got the ball rolling with everything. There is a huge amount I need to look into to improve where it fell down last time, it’ll take a while to figure out. There’s a chance I may not even be taking orders next year, but hopefully with this being my full focus as of February, once I’ve worked my notice period, it shouldn’t take too long to hit the ground running.

Every time I had thoughts about doing this again the negatives always outweighed the positives and it felt so daunting, this time around as daunting as it is it feels equally exciting.