The Silver Screen Oasis

Does anyone here make their own DVD sleeves for home recorded titles? That can be a fun hobby. Also does anyone know good sites to help make better sleeves - especially getting things like the spine name centered, etc. Maybe folks can start posting pictures of their own homemade DVD covers, that would be fun to see.

I'd be interested in learning myself. I dream of getting all my dvd-r movies into nice, clamshell cases with consistent looking spine labels and interseting cover art related to the film.

Mostly I use CD/DVD sleeves and make labels for the disc and then a rectangular label for the sleeve.

The spine is the biggest problem with most software for DVDs. I usually do a DC jewel case spine label and put it in the DVD case. It's narrow but works if you get it lined up right. I seldom do more than apicture on the DVD label if that much.

Look at the dvd covers this guy did for Humphrey Bogart movies:

http://bogart-tribute.net/dvdcovers.shtml

Nothing on that scale. That looks great.

That's excellent work!

I painted a front cover for one of my films, but I gave it away. One should start doing that more often though. I always love DVDs with beautiful front covers. It feels as if I've bought not only a great movie, but a nice decorative item to put on the shelf. It makes some difference.

Hedvig, Everyone,

I used to make sleeves all the time, but it got much to expensive to keep on doing this. Replacing the very costly Ink cartridges all the time was no fun! The Photo-paper wasn't cheap either! Plus I went through two printers in a relatively short period of time! They just break so easily!

I've got quite a few websites that I visit to snag movie-poster and DVD artwork from. I usually "paint out" the text and move it around the label for easier or larger locatoins, allowing me to increase the size of the fonts or to make them a higher-contrast color.

I also use PowerDVD to do screen captures for recorded films that don't have 'official' artwork available on the web.

I'm happy to share all of this or discuss how I do this. Drop me a PM with email addresses.

I designed this for my Thames version of Harold Lloyd's The Kid Brother:



Sometimes I adapt tape or laserdisc covers or grab vintage poster art from the net, and sometimes I like to try my hand at just creating my own.

Kyle,

Wow! Fantastic cover! Much better than New-Line Entertainment used on their Lloyd DVD's! I see you kept the term HAROLD LLOYD MASTERWORKS which I first used? I have never printed out a full-size label like that, only the smaller Jewel case ones.

I knew I had borrowed that phrase from somewhere...

This cover I made by scanning the VHS tape case and modifying it to DVD dimensions - I was quite pleased at how it came out. I also did a custom design for printable disc to go with this.

Okay, last one, I will not spam this forum!

Scanned from the laserdisc cover and modified thereafter. I did one for Griffith's Hearts of the World also, one for the Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow, and one for Kevin Brownlow's Hollywood series to fit a ten-disc DVD case (I also house some of the other Brownlow/Gill documentaries in the same case).

Kyle,

Wow! All iof those just look sensational! To bad that you can't market these! Really professional looking results! No, far better, than allot of professional's are apt to tun out!

In all fairness, though I appreciate your kind words, I must say that the last two were designed professionally by someone else, I merely borrowed their designs and modified the dimensions (in the case of Isn't Life Wonderful I also added an extra publicity still to the back cover). I am pleased that they turned out so well; since laserdisc jackets have no real spine to speak of I guess I could claim that as my own contribution to the graphic layout.