This project has been on my list for a few months. Basically, I want a sort of traditional jukebox at home so guests can play music. Not any old music from Spotify or Amazon or Apple or other streaming service. Only tracks I’ve painstakingly curated from my personal collection—just like an old jukebox.

Today, things kicked off with the most critical part of the entire project. Before getting into today’s work, I’ll offer up a brief explanation of what I’m shooting for…

The Hardware

• Either a repurposed vintage, table top jukebox selector or something custom built
• Must have buttons!
• Printed title cards > digital
• Plays through the HI-FI

Interaction basics

• Tracks available from a curated playlist
• Flip through the various tracks and add them to queue
• Tracks get played in order
• The house must have a reject button (even though all tracks will be solid gold)
• Visually, a traditional aesthetic where two tracks from an artist are listed on a card
• No search function (yes, old school and inefficient)
• Should auto play if there are no selections in queue, no dead air

Bonus: Web Application

This might ruin the whole vibe, but…

• Accessible only on local network
• Does all the basics above plus…
• Tells you what was played, but maybe not what’s coming up
• Lets you like songs
• Gives access to even more (curated) tracks than the hardware version
• Maybe, just maybe, you can search

Progress updates will be posted here. If you’re interested in more details, check out this repository: https://codeberg.org/jpreardon/jukebox.

Step One: Title Cards

Alright, as I said before, I started with the most important part of the project today: Title card design. Okay, maybe this isn’t super critical at this moment, but it’s what I was in the mood for.

Some might ask why design anything when there are several online generators? Well, I like to do things the hard way. Plus, with a web app in the offing, I wanted to be able to create the title cards dynamically based on the chosen tracks.

I went looking for some design inspiration and found it with Star Title Strips! Many thanks to this North Carolina blog, which has some history about the company that started printing title strips in 1949. These were exactly what I was looking for. I just replicated them as closely as I could as an homage to the Star Title Strip Co. Inc.

The sample card at the top of this post is very close to the originals. The font is not quite as groovy—the original has some nice little details. I suspect they used some Linotype font, which I don’t have access to. I’ll live with Helvetica and PT Sans though.

With the title card design out of the way, I can start on the rest. I’m not sure what the next step will be, perhaps the software. Stay tuned…