Jewelboxing - Super Jewel Box Packaging System

We thought it might be useful to document the process of starting an online business from scratch. Jim Coudal and Steve Delahoyde will periodically post here about issues involving our product and business plan. Hopefully things will go well but even if the whole thing goes down in flames, it’ll probably be interesting to watch.

Getting to Know the Real Bryan Bedell

Not to sing our own praises too loudly, but usually around here it's us talking to Jewelboxing users about their projects or interviewing them for one of our Case Study features, not the other way around. But such was the case with our own Bryan Bedell who was recently interviewed by IT Enquirer about all things Jewelboxing, from what tool designers tend to work with on their projects to printing thousands of cases in bulk. Being as Bryan is our resident Jewelboxing printing expert, and just because he's a generally pleasant person, it's an interview well worth your time.

Thanks to IT Enquirer for their interest in what we're up to and here's hoping that the tough questions are being asked in Seattle, York, New York, Santa Monica, Los Angeles, Huntington Beach, Pleasant Grove, Columbia, Sunnyvale, Centreville, Portland, Napa, Boston, Farmington Hills, Palmyra, Liverpool, Palmerton, Herndon, Dallas, London, Detroit and Houston.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008 | Permalink

Past Preservation

It's always cool when you learn something new about a friend. You think you know them pretty well, but then they surprise you with something they've never mentioned before, like "I won the state archery championship in high school" or "I just finished writing my first novel. It's about bees, which I've been utterly fascinated by since childhood." Such was the case with our good friend Andrew Huff, who has not only been a web ally over at Gaper's Block, but has helped us over the years with projects of ours like Layer Tennis and The Show, as well as coming along with us on more than a couple of trips to the bar. But until recently, we didn't know about a project he'd used Jewelboxing for and once we'd heard all the details, we asked him if he wouldn't mind sharing them on the blog. He agreed and so here's the whole story from Andrew himself:

"At Christmas in 2001, I brought a mini-casette recorder out to my grandparents' house in Scottsdale, Arizona, to interview them about their youth. My grandmother was born in Italy and immigrated to the US when she was 8, passing through Ellis Island on her way to Chicago. My grandfather was born here, fought in the Pacific Theater during World War II, and came home to jobs ranging from running a small trucking firm to working for the City of Chicago's Recorder of Deeds to owning a nightclub. He was the single best storyteller I've ever known, and their life together was so rich that I wanted to make sure at least part of it was recorded for posterity.

"I recorded about three hours of tape that Christmas. In between stories of my grandparents' childhood in Chicago's Little Italy, their courtship and my grandfather's experiences in Guadal Canal and after, I also captured the rest of the family filling in details and asking questions. On one tape, my grandmother walks through the steps of making stuffed artichokes, and then we talk about life after marriage, the move from the Old Neighborhood, and grandpa's trucking company and the uniform company he drove for for 20 years.

"In 2003, I brought my recorder with me again. This time, it was to record my grandfather one more time: he was in the last stages of lung cancer, so it was one last opportunity to ask him questions. He told me about the bar he ran, and about the move to Arizona in the early '90s. Three weeks later, he passed away.

"The tapes sat in my office for several years, until my grandmother expressed interest in hearing them again. That spurred me to finally have them digitized. As I prepared the files for Grandma, I realized that the rest of the family would be interested in copies, too. So a grand Christmas present project was hatched.

"I knew right off the bat that I wanted to use Jewelboxing cases for the CDs. They're beautiful presentation pieces, and the custom templates allowed me to easily create nicely designed inserts for them. I scanned photos from my mother and my collection, produced layouts in Photoshop using the templates, and printed them up. Unfortunately, I ran out of time before Christmas to actually burn the CDs. Fortunately, I was able to print the CD labels and take them with me, burning the discs and slapping on labels while listening to the recordings with my grandmother.

"The four-CD set turned out beautifully, and fits perfectly on the shelf alongside DVDs and books. My family loved the gift, of course. I'm looking forward to repeating the project with my dad's side of the family this summer."

Thanks very much to Andrew and here's to hoping for a few surprises in Arlington, Austin, Cupertino, Orsay, Launceston, Lexington, Mountain View, Old Buckenham, Belfast, Wimbledon, Surbiton, Berkeley, Oslo, Guildford, Burbank, Chicago, Brooklyn, Montreal, Meerbusch, Great Neck, Richmond, Tonsberg, New York, Woburn, Elk Grove, London, Amsterdam, Seattle, Helsinki, Stockbridge, Bonita Springs, and Edmonton.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008 | Permalink

Shoot, Mix, Repeat

It makes it easy to get up in the morning and come in to Jewelboxing HQ thanks to people like Sara Flemming. Not only does she use our cases a ton, she has a blast doing it, and what more could you ask for in a customer? After running across some of her photos on Flickr, we dropped her a line asking if she wouldn't mind telling us a little about her work and her experiences using Jewelboxing. Here's her reply in full:

"For a few years now, I've been using the Jewelboxing system for two things: mix CDs (really!) and event photos.

"The Jewelboxing templates let me play designer just a little bit and, with the mix CDs, it's fun matching the mood of the mix with the sleeve, insert, tray, and disc art. Being able to stack two CDs in the Standard case is a major plus; y'know, sometimes you just have a mix that's too much for one disc! (:

"With the event photos, the templates give me a chance to showcase some of the photographs, previewing what's on the disc for the recipient. The paper for all the inserts and even the disc labels take color really well, whether I decide to go with bright blue skies, fresh off the farm peaches, or deeply shadowed black and whites.

"After nearly a dozen projects (mostly event photos), the process of putting a disc together is quite quick: choose the photos, edit the event or mix information, print, punch out, and go! The whole system lets me present my work my own way, with full control from start to finish. I love that."

Thanks much to Sara and here's to hoping mixes are being made and events are being photographed in Portland, Somerville, McMinnville, New York, Chicago, Vancouver, Pittsburgh, Brooklyn, Palm Springs, Ann Arbor, Spring Hill, Cary, Palo Alto, Carnarvon, Washington DC, Ridgefield, Lincoln, Madison, Richmond, Great Barrington, Corvallis, Pasadena, El Segundo, Glasgow, San Diego, Bethlehem, Denver, Carouge and Zurich.

Tuesday, April 08, 2008 | Permalink

The Revolution Will Be Available on DVD

It must be the season for interesting, off-the-beaten-path Jewelboxing projects, as it seems like we've been receiving word of a lot of unique cases lately. So it is with Dean Cooper, a designer from the UK, about packaging a film he made about he and his friend's trip to Cuba several years back. While we haven't seen the film, based on Dean's work with the case, we're guessing that it's more than equal in its skill and attention to detail (as an aside: Dean, can you make a poster out of the cover and tray art, so we can buy it and hang it on our wall?) Here's a little about his process in putting the project together:

"I bought my Jewelboxing cases over a year ago but have only just got round to using them on a personal project that I've only just completed. A film of a trip to Cuba that me and a friend had in 2001 a lot of work went into editing the DVD and the Jewelboxing cases finish the project off beautifully. I found scans of a child's sticker book produced just after the revolution on Flickr and used these 1960's graphics as the basis for my design. I found the templates easy to use and the paper good quality."

Here's to hoping the revolution is beginning to take root in Des Plains, La Grange, Honolulu, Seattle, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Fayetteville, Naples, Burlington, White Plains, Denver, Fairfield, San Jose, Fort Worth, San Francisco, Oak Park, Cambridge, Irvine, North Vancouver, Redmond, Clio and Middletown.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008 | Permalink

Completely Complete Introducing The new Jewelboxing Studio