How to Create Cover Art for Independent Music Distribution

December viii, 2021

How to create an anthology cover that yous and your fans will honey

This post is a collaboration with: PosterMyWall – a complimentary album cover maker

Create a professional anthology comprehend in half dozen simple steps

Releasing an album is a strenuous, merely fun, process!

You've created the music, considered music publishing and prepared for release – but you're withal getting started! Finally it'south time to bring all that difficult work to fruition and make sure your music reaches the earth!

Earlier you jumping into free music distribution to Spotify and other digital stores, you must create an enticing anthology cover.

This should not only represent your music, but also appeal to your audience.

Here are some corking tips on how to make the perfect album cover for your music.

ane. Consider your audition

Whether yous're a Popular artist or Hip Hop rapper, in that location are different expectations from fans.

When thinking near how to create an album cover, start with some research. Assessing work past your favourite artists is a peachy first stride.

A great piece of anthology art tin help tell an overall story conveyed by an artist.

An album embrace Hip Hop artists would use (like Drake's album cover for Nothing Was The Same) would have a different arroyo to creating an album cover if you were Taylor Swift.

Going beyond "generic" and telling a story (whilst appealing to your target audience) is the way to make your anthology cover part of your art.

In the examples beneath, both artworks depict a contour view of each artist. The differences between each are subtle but are the central details that speak to their audition.

In Drake's album embrace we run across the shaving in his haircut, his gold concatenation and the graffiti font, which are indications to a Hip Hop/RnB audience.

The painted portrait and the blue sky, tell a bit of the album'south story.

In Taylor's album comprehend, nosotros see:

• Red lipstick
• Styled wavy pilus
• A hat
• A item font and virtually-pastel font colors.

These subtleties speak to a unlike audience to the Drake anthology.

The shadow over her face up, what she might be looking at and the why? of the art offset to tell a story of the album.

2. Select the right colors to represent your music

Bands or musicians typically have a special color palette. Their fans automatically associate these colors with them and their music.

When designing your own album cover, it's important for yous to go for colors that represent both your music and your personality as a musician.

When selecting the perfect color palette for your anthology comprehend, ask yourself the following questions:

• How exercise you want your listeners to feel when they listen to the album?
• What overall vibe do you lot want the album to portray?
• What colors exercise people commonly associate with y'all or the genre of music you create?

Once you have the answers to these questions, you'll be able to create a mood board of colors and create the perfect combination to add to your album cover.

For instance, if y'all desire people to trip the light fantastic and experience happy, utilise warmer, brighter colors together. If the album is melancholic, use blue or some variation of cooler colors, or go with a single, dark-colored tone.

3. Add together in some on-brand visuals

The images you add together to your album encompass will be the most central aspect that people have note of.

To create an anthology comprehend that catches people'south attention, you need to place specific focus on the sort of imagery you lot volition exist adding to it.

Ideally, the visuals on your album cover should be representative of you as a musician and the kind of music you're creating for your fans. They should also encompass the image yous want to portray to your listeners.

Some artists like to go the quondam schoolhouse route and add in their own picture show equally the chief visual on an album cover. This is especially the case if this is your debut album. Others like to add in a visual that best portrays the sort of music they create.

If your music is more melancholic with a tiresome beat, become for some minimalistic imagery with a blend of colors. If your music is upbeat and chaotic, go for a maximalist prototype or a collage that showcases everything you want your listener to feel.

Streaming platforms and stores can be strict about what they display. There are some things to avert in your anthology embrace design. Avoid:

• Email addresses, websites or social handles
• Pricing
• Cut-off text or images. Or, images that are cropped into a corner with white infinite
• Any logos besides your artist, label or publisher
• Anything that breaks copyright law
• Blurry imagery
• Explicit content/parental informational signs

Nudity, violence or illegal activity volition also be contested. So, if you want to depict these in a creative fashion you will have to be really careful and potentially work with your distributor to get this right.

4. Choose a fun font for your album name

Your album name, like everything else, should be presented in a way that best represents what it'southward well-nigh.

This will exist much easier to figure out once you've planned out your artful by following the first three tips.

If you've fabricated a hip hop album, a loud font would be a skilful fit. On the other manus, if you've made an indie album, a simple sans serif font would do a skillful job if you desire to depict a more sombre vibe. For some softer, experience-proficient music, try out a nice cursive font.

five. Consider your blueprint on multiple platforms

Once you're done designing your anthology cover, the adjacent stride is to get it gear up to be marketed. This means releasing your album on multiple other platforms, both online and offline.

Your cover will have to be high resolution and look skilful every bit a small-scale box in the corner of a screen. At the same time, your cover also needs to piece of work on big vinyl records, CDs, and billboards.

So, before you finalise your album encompass, adjust your design fashion appropriately.

Go on in mind dissimilar places your album will be visible and ensure it still stands out. Adjust your pattern according to unlike sizes and see if everything is still visible and aesthetically audio.

You tin also resize your album cover into social media posts to amp upwardly your online presence and go your followers excited.

6. What is the size of an album encompass?

The dimensions for album covers are:

Digital

For digital releases, such every bit to Spotify or Apple Music, your artwork needs to be at least 1600×1600 pixels. Although, 3000×3000 is recommended.

CD

When it comes to making artwork for print, you must consider the dpi (dots per inch). A college dpi produces a college quality image when printed. Therefore, you should work with at least 300dpi.

A CD encompass dimension is 4.72×4.72 inches. This in pixels at 300dpi is 1416×1416.

Vinyl

As with CD, vinyl covers must be printed.

At 300dpi, a 12 inch anthology cover would need to be 3600×3600 pixels.

Terminal thoughts

Your music deserves to be heard, which is why it's so important to get the album cover right.

The central takeaway hither is to focus on private elements and make sure each one is perfect.

Online blueprint tools like PosterMyWall'southward album cover maker include a lot of fabulous anthology comprehend templates. These will assistance inspire you to get started on your own.

Throughout the designing process, call back to stay true to yourself as an artist. Show people what your brand is like and what your music represents.

• anthology fine art
• artist development
• branding
• design
• distribution
• Infographics
• Record release

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Source: https://www.vampr.me/how-to-create-an-album-cover/

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