General CD Size
12.5*14cm

TCM CD ***
Specially Packaging

Size：25*25 CM [ LP ]
Paper Products

In-your-face packaging

TCM's advantage in distribution and packaging didn't simply appear out of nowhere. When he first started the company, Zhang came up with all manner of tricks to give the new brand exposure. "I previously worked in the mainstream record industry, so I knew very well how important distribution is," he says. In order to break into the market, he personally made sales visits to record shops all over Taiwan. "Although it was tiring, the results were good. Now you can see our releases in most record stores," he adds.

However, even when they are willing to stock indie recordings, record shops have usually placed non-mainstream works in less conspicuous locations. Thus, Zhang's second trick was to make a break from most people's conception of a CD by deliberately using a box with the same 25 x 25-centimeter dimensions as the album sleeve for a traditional vinyl record. Zhang says in a self-satisfied tone, "Making them that big meant the record shops had no choice but to put them someplace prominent, and shoppers can't avoid seeing them whether they want to or not." Zhang's unconventional approach enabled TCM to get a dedicated display rack at many shops, treatment that even mainstream records can't necessarily obtain.
What most excites music-lovers about TCM are its exquisite print design and magazine CD concept. "I have always loved reading magazines, so I turned albums into magazine CDs, with lots of text and illustrations to add depth to the product," explains Zhang.

TCM's Designer "Shout" Has Been Selected To The Best Cover Design At The Grammy Awards 2006 & 2007

When most mainstream record companies are planning a new release, they limit the function of the booklet text and art design to spotlighting the singer. However, in TCM releases, the text might be literature and the art design may be a distinctive creative work-related to the album but with a life of their own.
In terms of artistic expression, TCM's works are chiefly the creations of designer Hsiao Ching-yang. Like Zhang, he once worked in the mainstream record industry. But only in the indie music arena has he been able to find the space to give free rein to his ideas.

"When I am working on an album for TCM, our workshop operates independently, and TCM doesn't interfere at all," Hsiao says. He therefore treats each cover he does for TCM as one of his own autonomous works of art, putting effort into conveying a distinctive Taiwanese visual style that maintains indigenous characteristics yet is also able to reflect an awareness of international artistic trends.'

Just as Zhang wants to preserve the various sounds of our times, Hsiao hopes that his own works can convey a visual memory of a particular era. For a local indie compilation album released in 2001, Hsiao drew on the television drama Dragon in Flight that was so popular at the time as his inspiration for a cover that showed his naked son in the pose of an acrobatic fighter, mimicking a character from the drama. When he was doing a design for an album by talk show host Hing Chun, given the latter's style of earthy humor and rants, Hsiao brought in protest celebrity Ko Tzu-hai, to accentuate the album's jarring sense of the times.