Music is the whole other world. Every piece of music is a life story. Every music album is a set of stories united by one idea. Every music album cover is the gateway to what’s inside. Although the songs and pieces of music are the main “heroes,” it is the cover that creates the initial moment of magic, as apart from aesthetic pleasure, it is the guide to all the stories in the album. The album covers should be expressive and original, matching the expectations of the listeners regarding the album content.
While the artists typically dedicate their effort to the main piece of work – the songs, the cover will also require a great deal of thought and creativity. How to create an album cover that matches the mood of the music stories, and creates the atmosphere before even turning on the music? Let’s follow the guide.
Key Components of the Album Cover
1. Consider the Target Audience
Obviously, every musician wants to have a big audience of listeners, which keeps growing over time. However, when creating the album cover, it is important to have a clear vision of the target audience, their age, and life experience. All the tiny bits and pieces of the listener avatar define the way the music and the album cover are perceived.
2. Work on the Concept
The album cover does all the talking until the sound starts its journey. Before looking for the imagery, colors, and styles, it is important to come up with the concept of the cover, its symbolism, and the philosophy of the idea. The best way to elaborate on the concept is by sketching, the more – the better. Sketching will work as a graphic brainstorming, when every idea will get its form and shape on the paper, and later on, used as a particle of a more global vision.
If you struggle with all the drawings, it is worth looking for inspiration online or soaking up the atmosphere of real life, which is always the most genuine source of ideas.
Once all the ideas are on paper, it is time to filter the bad ones from the good ones, take away the cliches and standard vision, etc. As it is rather difficult to stay unbiased when choosing the right idea, it is important to ask for help and opinions of others.
3. Go Digital
After choosing the analog sketches, and deciding on the final vision, it is time to use digital instruments and refine the images. Luckily, online resources like Vista Create, offer numerous tools for creating and customizing the album cover. There are numerous patterns, and additional functions to use when working on the images like a free background remover, photo layering, photo grids, color and font change, etc.
When working on the image, it is necessary to keep the balance of colors, ideas, and details.
The listeners want to see the depth of the ideas through the simplicity of lines and colors. Overloaded images lose their attractiveness and become meaningless after all. The album cover needs to spur creativity and let the listeners continue the journey on their own while enjoying the music.
4. Size Considerations
After the album cover is taken to perfection, it is important to work on its platform-fitting size. The music is typically distributed to Spotify, Apple Music, and other music streaming platforms; therefore, it is important to check their criteria regarding the album cover sizes.
As a rule, the album covers need to meet the following criteria:
– JPG or PNG format
– At least 72 DPI
– Square format
– At least 3000 x 3000 pixels.
Apart from that, the cover shouldn’t contain any URLs, hashtags, pornographic images, or references to brands.
5. Testing Period
When everything is finally settled and designed, it is worth creating a focus group and analyzing their perception of your ideas. All the thoughts, words of praise, and criticism should be considered, and if possible, put to action. Some tweaking of the colors, fonts, or detail placement will only benefit the final result.
The Bottom Line
The book is always judged by its cover, as well as the albums. The album cover matters, as it is a visual insight into the album background. A meaningful cover creates a long-lasting effect on devoted listeners and helps to captivate the new ones. The efficient album cover is about a true understanding of a target audience and research into their needs, a daunting process of making sketches of ideas, and the final development of the ideas with the help of digital tools.
The right album cover will resonate with the pieces of music and bring pleasure to every listener, and thus, more liking to the singer.
