t's been said that the emergence of the compact disc as the dominant medium for disseminating recorded music also brought with it the death of "album cover" artwork as we knew it.  Surely, as the back catalogues of older vinyl albums were being updated to compact discs, with their original packaging being duplicated as much as possible in miniature to fit the new medium's format, this was true.  The 12"x12" canvas of the standard album cover was significantly larger than that of a CD cover (the front cover are is only 4.75"x4.75"), and it was nearly impossible to maintain the level of intricacy and detail that some LP album artwork had.  It gets even worse for those LPs that had a foldout jacket that doubled the width of the art surface!  Nonetheless, the new medium is here to stay, and the artwork in the packaging has adapted.  While we may never again see an album cover as intricate and outrageous in its' detail as offerings like Frank Zappa's The Grand Wazoo or The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (neither of which, in my opinion, translated well to the new, smaller sizes), it is possible to create quality artwork for a compact disc case that is both interesting to look at and informative.

n this page, I offer up some artwork for CD cases that I have worked on.  Most of them are for recordings of live Bruce Hornsby concerts, since he has graciously allowed fans to record and distribute these "bootlegs".  The only thing that Bruce, as well as several other "taper-friendly" artists ask is that people respect this privelege by following the traditionally accepted terms and caveats respected by fans of The Grateful Dead (whom many consider the ultimate taper-friendly band), and distribute these recordings freely and not for profit.  I also have offered up some sizing templates to assist others who would like to create their own CD cover artwork.  These templates will help you to make sure that your artwork will actually fit in the plastic jewel cases that CDs are stored in.  All of the artwork is based on a scale of 96 pixels per inch.

o see the artwork for the individual CDs, click on the thumbnail pictures shown below.  You can freely download any of this work to use or share.  Windows users, just right-click on the picture and select "save picture as"... Mac users, I have no idea, but you probably already know how already!

Bruce Hornsby & The Range @ Trocadero Theatre, Philadelphia, PA 9/3/1986 Bruce Hornsby & The Range @ Symphony Hall, Springfield, MA 2/16/1987 Bruce Hornsby @ Landmark Theatre, Syracuse, NY 11/28/1993 Bruce Hornsby @ Maryland State Theater, Hagerstown, MD 8/21/1995
Bruce Hornsby @ Westbury Music Fair, Westbury, NY 9/1/1995 Bruce Hornsby @ The Strand, Providence, RI 5/24/1996 Bruce Hornsby & Roanoke Symphony @ Salem Civic Center, Salem, VA 10/9/1997 Bruce Hornsby @ The Strand Theatre, York, PA 7/28/1998
Bruce Hornsby @ Sokol-Blosser Winery, Dundee, OR 8/22/1998 Bruce Hornsby @ Proctor's Theatre, Schenectady, NY 4/22/1999 Bruce Hornsby 'Millennium Bash' @ William & Mary Hall, Williamsburg, VA 12/31/1999 Bruce Hornsby @ Count Basie Theatre, Red Bank, NJ 7/31/2001
Bruce Hornsby @ Biltmore Estate, Asheville, NC 8/11/2001 Bruce Hornsby @ Milwaukee Zoo Amphitheatre, Milwaukee, WI 8/16/2001 Bruce Hornsby 'Piston Works' recordings, 2002 'Bruce Hornsby @ Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort, Mt. Pleasant, MI 5/23/2002
'Bruce Hornsby @ Hookahville, Buckeye Lake, OH 5/25/2002 'Bruce Hornsby @ Symphony Hall, Chicago, IL 7/17/2002 'Bruce Hornsby @ Fraze Pavilion, Kettering, OH 7/19/2002
Wings 'Last Flight' @ Apollo Theatre, Glasgow, Scotland 12/17/1979 Paul McCartney @ MCI Center, Washington, DC 4/24/2002 'The Sensitive Ones', from HOB webcast @ Red Rocks, Denver, CO 9/12/1999 Phish @ Rosemont Horizon, Rosemont, IL 10/31/1995
Sizing Templates