The design brief for this project was an outer slipcase box, two double-sided inlays, disc art and booklet designs for a ten-film compilation from the extrememly prolific Shaw Brothers filmmaker CHANG CHEH. Oh, and come up with a title for it.
As is typical of my working method, my first intention is to for the outer packaging to reflect the tone and feeling of it's contents. And to me, this patchwork collection of pathwork films reminded me of my early days rummaging around the dusty old shelves of Chinese video rental shops in somewhat seedy parts of town. As I've chronicled previously, this lead me to spend so much time in one particular shop in suburban Maryland, VIDEO CITY, that I eventually married the owner. Now our store is long gone, but the wife (and hundreds of VHS tapes I couldn't part with) remain.
But something about this Chang Cheh collection triggered a memory from the old video store. My wife would constantly get new Hong Kong movie posters with every shipment of tapes. She'd put up some new ones, and take down soem old ones. And what did she do with the old posters? Well, grab a seat HK movie collectors and take a deep breath... she would CUT THEM UP INTO LITTLE SQUARES and use the reverse blank side as scrap notepaper on the counter for customers to use to scribble on when communicating in Mandarin, Cantonese or even broken English. As a matter of fact I still have some cherished "squares" of a ROBOTRIX poster somewhere. I eventually stopped her from doing that for the most part, and bought her a notepad. But these discarded, faded and torn old poster scraps somehow informed my visual approach to this package. The movies are old so. The package should remind buyers of the excitement we felt digging through those forgotten shelves discovering an old movie that you'd never seen, featuring a faded photo of one of your Martial Arts heroes. Our hearts beat like finding lost gold. So, from the distressed background to the photo collage to the "carved colossus" title treatment. Even the tarnished copper metal corners which are taken from an old Chinese jewlery box I own. It's all meant to evoke those old patchwork memories for fans of these films. While still presenting them with a clarity that was impossible outside a theater. We are living in a golden age for physical media collectors. But for how much longer is anyone's guess.
FURIOUS SWORDS AND FANTASTIC WARRIORS: THE HEROIC CINEMA OF CHANG CHEH.
The two inlays are designed to be placed side by side making a diptych.
The turquoise tone was a color I haven't used much in my designs lately and it made me think "old". I felt this was the appropriate time for its return. The circular stickers are the type of thing my wife would apply to the tapes to indicate if it has Mando or Canto dialogue, so I wanted to include an homage.
And my book cover design also has that "UV-damaged from months in an old shop window" appeal... and is more than ready for my wife to rip into small pieces. (Damn it honey, that was Jackie Chan!)
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