better still, avoid the whole landfill clogging plastic box entirely, and slip your CD into a paper or cardboard sleeve. might take a litle more creativity to design and produce, but you won't be using petrochemicals, or creating unrecycleable trash - and you can use 100% post-consumer paper/cardboard.

Or distribute online and save the plastic of the CD too.

Or do nothing at all and save the energy needed to cool server farms.

This is also an insanely expensive way to do it.

So we have a nice presentation via Jewelbox, a green presentation via emailing, and a relaxing presentation via couch-sitting.

cd/dvd packaging is just annoying. i'm a video producer and in my experience most limited distribution projects are distributed in plain plastic clamshell or ejector cases. the only labelling is done on the disc itself. i use a canon inkjet printer wihich does a beautiful job.

Stephen:
As someone who analyzes everything I get my hands on in terms of whether or not it's compostable, I appreciate your point, and don't disagree. We all have to make complex choices (as Rob so aptly pointed out), and in this case this product serves my needs exceptionally well. I recommend backing up photos to optical media (archival gold discs, maybe a future CT review), and if the discs I send to clients serve as backups, they're not going directly to the landfill, and neither are these cases.

Jewelboxing isn't for everyone, but for an individual contracting with big institutions and multinational firms, they go a long way toward making the playing field appear more level than it is.

Uh, this is really overpriced. You can get decent cd cases pretty much anywhere - wallyworld if you want - for next to nothing per unit and putting together a template in say Word or Photoshop is trivial.
If you want the "king" boxes, which are the DVD movie-style, they are almost always on sale for $1/ea or less. Hit the various bargin aggreator sites for that.
This, and the last half-dozen or so posts on cooltools, have been NOTHING but ads. This ranks right up there with the baby diaper clips.

Ever since Mr Sterling met his untimely demise, it seems the reigning zeitgeist on the CT site is "holier than thou." That is, "I'm more of a minimalist than you -- I can get by without this." "I'm more of a skinflint than you -- I can get the same thing cheaper." "I'm greener than you -- I would NEVER do this to the environment." There's a place for each of these, but it is getting a bit tiresome.

PaulD: no kidding. It's like the bitterness factor suddenly doubled -- although this may be simply because people appear to be commenting more.

Yep. At one point, the comments were as informative as the posts themselves, but the incessant "I don't need this, so it's useless" is making me rethink how I read here.

And yes, I'm the one that spent a week arguing directly with Bruce Sterling about his direction (which turned out to be a great conversation, I think), and no, I didn't apply for the job.

I mean: Seriously, you can get crappy CD cases cheaper than nice CD cases? Wowee, I guess I should just throw Elon's comments about trying to look professional out the window if I can save fifteen cents per project...

Yes. You can go cheaper. Yes. Your image in your client's eyes will be proportionally cheaper. Having been on both sides of the transaction, I can safely say that you look like a moron when you hand someone custom software in a paper sleeve.

And "commercials"? Instead of what!? Is any entry on this list NOT an unpaid advertisement, by definition?

(For the record, I've greatly appreciated the recent recommendations. I don't need these boxes just now, but the link is saved for future reference, because I wanted exactly this a couple of years back, and know I'll need'em again soon. Similarly, I'm not sure the GridBeam stuff is for me, but the mention of the "Nomadic Furniture" books are a great pointer that I'm pursuing.)

John et all: the answer is: it's the economy, stupid. Next thing you know, we're supposed to be happy that a recommendation for a new Bugatti Veyron is posted.
And don't get all shirty about green and stuff; there USED to be a fair amount of items related to off-grid lifestyles. Now, it's all bling and very questionable stuff.

I can see a use for these in some cases, definitely. As far as printing labels on discs (as others have mentioned) goes, I've had mixed results. One thing that solved those issues and actually looks really well done in my opinion is using a Lightscribe drive and media. I bought one of those drives when I was upgrading my home computer since they were only $10 more at the time, and am very pleased with the result. I don't often label things for use around here or in the office with it since it does take about 20 minutes/disc, but when I am sending something out to a client in the mail it can look really sharp and professional. It doesn't support colors, only greyscale, but with a good clean design, I've had people think they were pressed in a factory instead of made at home.

@ Rightman: It is the economy. And I'd like to get some recommendations of tools for dealing with these financially tough times. If you or any CT reader has something along those lines to share, tell me/us about it:
elon at schoenholz dot c om

@ Barc: I use Lightscribe, too, actually instead of the Jewelboxing disc labels. It does look pretty clean.

Presentation can definitely be crucial in some settings, however $1.63 per jewel case is quite expensive. You can more or less the same thing for $0.69 here:
http://www.uline.com/BL_5151/Standard-Jewel-Cases
http://www.uline.com/BL_8901/?pricode=wj815
and if you're willing to shop around it's not hard to bring the price down to roughly half that amount.

My post about getting it cheaper has nothing to do with sacrificing quality or professional results. This is designed to prey on consumers who don't know anything about how cheap it really is to do this sort of thing or how easy it is to do it all yourself. There are literally hundreds of free templates around for every design platform you could think of so their software is worthless. And you can get standard jewel cases from a great number of sellers for a fraction of what they want to charge for their cases.

They want to sell you into a proprietary system. There is nothing more professional about their results. The whole point is to sell you slightly different cases that work only with their templates and vise versa so you feel locked into their "Jewelboxing System".

From their FAQ:
"What are the fundamental differences between Jewelboxing's products and those of other companies selling similar cases and inserts?

Only Jewelboxing provides a soup-to-nuts system with which you can create fully integrated, professional CD and DVD cases. Generally when you buy empty cases, the inserts, tray liners, and disc labels are not included with the purchase. You have to hunt them down separately. Jewelboxing sends you what you need to get the job done direct to your door in a single box. "

I've put out records for years and this is clearly just a shortcut company where you are paying a huge premium for a questionable service. Yes, it's generally bad form to send stuff off folded up in a crappy paper, but with slightly more effort on your own you can get superior results for significantly less money. Is it worth multiplying your per disc cost to not have to "hunt down" a template on google and your own sheets of paper? Maybe for a few, but to me this is right on par with that crazy expensive designer laptop bag.

To me this is the antithesis of what we should see here as it's only appealing to people who don't know better. The site ideally serves as one who DOES know better and should be pointing us all to the alternatives to BS consumer service products like this.

I think some of us are just living in different worlds on this issue. These boxes are not useful for, say, shrinkwrapped software or local musicians. I'm talking more about contract-based work. When you're charging a few thousand dollars, the extra dollar for a box that makes you stand out is not cutting into your profit margin.

Thanks for the links to the Lightscribe stuff, too--I'll have to look into that.

And sure, I love the off-grid stuff, too, and clearly Elon has an appreciation for it, given his own submissions that critics are conspicuously overlooking. But I (and many others) also have a small business to run, and (due to "the economy, stupid") these tidbits help enormously.

It appears that the manufacturers of the Jewelboxing cases is http://www.superjewelbox.com/?pagina=home . They have a list of distributors at http://www.superjewelbox.com/?pagina=links&cat=5 . If you're interested in the cases only without the labels, several of the distributors look like they're about half the price of Jewelboxing.

Looking closer at Coudal Partners' offering, there is a serious issue: they include and recommend the use of adhesive labels on your CDs or DVDs. I've been burning and handing out nicely packaged CD-Rs to clients et al since the mid-90's, and I can tell you from painful first-hand experience that even the best quality disc labels cause problems. Initially, discs with high-quality adhesive labels will work well in most (though not all) drives, but as they age the labels shift and ripple very slightly, which starts out causing periodic read errors and eventually renders the disc unusable.

Even if you do use Coudal's jewelbox packaging, do yourself a favor and instead of using the adhesive labels buy printable CD-Rs or DVD-Rs and print directly on the discs. Many inexpensive inkjet printers will now print on CD-Rs and DVD-Rs. These folks have a great selection and great prices on blank printable discs: http://www.supermediastore.com

For best results and longevity, go with Taiyo Yuden "Watershield" discs. Taiyo Yuden invented the CD-R (literally) and still produces the best quality discs, and the coating on their Watershield line makes whatever you print on them really "pop" and look professional.

How do you make a real impact? Use nice paper and make a handmade case:
http://www.instructables.com/tag/?q=paper+cd+case&limit%3Atype%3Aid=on&type%3Aid=on&type%3Auser=on&type%3Acomment=on&type%3Agroup=on&type%3AforumTopic=on&type%3AforumTopic=on&sort=none

Takes about the same time as creasing and wedging paper into plastic parts. Many clients (of course, varying depending on your industry) will appreciate the handmade classy touch more than any slick sterile plasticky casing.

I love how all the people are badmouthing this service. Did anyone actually take the time to realize that these are NOT ordinary cd's. These are more expensive (Super) jewel cases that are not even used in North America. These are used mainly in Germany and parts of Europe. Why, because they are made of a much more durable high impact plastic that doesn't fall apart like our stuff here. And there's always an alternative to "Save" money. Why can't you just like the fact that this is available and if you don't like it, move on. Don't waste our time trying to make everyone else look bad.