How this CD was Printed
This CD is hand printed on a CDR. The reason I did this was to avoid having to print 1000 CDs all at once. You can't get less than 1000 CDs printed anywhere. Even if you get 500 cds printed somewhere, the price is the same as the price for 1000. For a band like ours that isn't really likely to start being super famous any time soon, 1000 CDs is really too much. What are we going to do with them all?
I've screen printed covers for CDs and albums before, and It's always taken way too much work to be worth it, but it turned out to be really easy to print on cds. On the right, you can see the set-up I used to make these CDs. I put 4 CD images on one screen. I put down some craft paper under the press and drew an outline of where the CDs should go. To print the second color, I drew rough guides on the paper that showed me how the CD should be lined up after the pink layer had dried.
Part of the plan was to make a design that didn't really need to be that lined up to look cool. If you need to perfectly align several different colors, you will need a more complicated press. I used textile ink, but pretty much any thin ink with good adhesion will do. Obviously, you can't use an ink you have to heat up on a CD.
It only took me about 20 minutes to print 120 CDRs with one color, which is pretty good. CD burners aren't really effecient, so if I start selling a lot of CDs, I'll have to press them for real, but that's OK. This is a great way to get our CD out there for cheap. The CDs cost about 10 cents each, the jewel cases 25 cents and the inserts were about $390 for 1000 (I had them printed, so I had to get 1000). The ink for printing costs a few pennies a CD. They end up being pretty cheap overall, so I can afford to sell them cheap and still get the music out there.
For more information on screen printing, see the "How to Screen Print" section.