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The Beginner’s Guide: How To Create An Album Cover?

by Alice Jackson Tweet - in Album Cover

Album Cover

Last updated on October 6th, 2021

Hundreds of records get lined up in a music shop for sale. So, how is your music going to get the attention of music lovers and buyers? While ultimately the quality of music that attracts the fans but, initially, the design of your album cover matters a lot to grab the attention. A carefully planned cover design represents your music and entices people to buy and listen. In this article, we’ve shared why it’s necessary to create unique album covers and what are the requisites needed to keep in mind while creating them.

You may be an artist, DJ, or a newly established music band. Or, you are a motivational speaker who is looking to release podcasts for the interested buyers. For a new artist and music creator, spending money lavishly on designing album covers is not a wise decision always. Instead, you would like to save money to promote your music in so many ways.

Remember that to sell your music, first, having a beautiful album cover that lures potential buyers. You should first put in place an impressive album cover design before you release your new music album. This is because the potential buyers of your music will see the cover to have an impression of your songs.

At initial stages, instead of hiring a professional graphic designer, you can create the cover on your own without any hassle and save the expense at the same time.

Why You Need An Album Cover? Why Is It Important?

When you visit a music store, you find hundreds of CD covers stacked in a rack. People draw out those covers to see the cover art to have a glimpse of what the music is all about. If the art is impressive and perfectly depicts the music, then the target music lover will think of buying it.

When someone loves to listen to particular music or song in a playlist, it is the album cover art that the listener first sees. The design of the cover compels the listener to explore the music further. The image on the cover is one of the key reasons for the listeners’ excitement about that music from the band.

We can say that your album covers entice the listener to know more about the album, your band, and what type of music you produce. The cover art is a vital factor in grabbing the attention of the target customer. Also, a well-designed cover can contextualize a song and tell the story of what the entire album is all about.

The cover art is a way to turn your passive listener into valuable active listeners. So, with a well thought out design of the cover, you can hope that it will convert people into super-fans of your music band.

Think About Your Fans……..!

When you have successfully made people your fans, they will visit stores to buy your album. Know that a recent study has revealed that even if the number of super-fans is smaller, they spend a lot on buying albums.

The study says that only 14% of super-fans music consumers spend 34% of the entire money music lovers spent on buying albums. So, create your album cover thoughtfully with a purpose.

Know that if someone finds your music or a song in a playlist, it is your album cover art that the listener will first see. After getting an impression of your music from the cover, the listener will then further explore your songs. So, the album art serves as a bridge between liking your one song and learning more about your music, band, producer.

The cover art, whether it’s an album cover or thumbnail size for YouTube, becomes a crucial marketing strategy to grab the attention of your target customers, contextualize a song, and even tell the story of your band.

Your album cover is, therefore, your tool to convert passive listening into your valuable active listeners. A well-designed cover can make your casual listeners into super-fans of your music band.

But we understand that in the beginning, you wish to create your album art without spending too much money on it. Like many small businesses, you also can do the design on your own by using DIY design tools available free online.

These tools let you design an album cover in easy steps, and the results are impressive. However, before you start working on your album design, you must adhere to it.

Here Is What You Should Consider Creating An Album Cover

01. Know Your Audience

First, as a music artist, you must be clear about who precisely is your audience. Do not think that everyone is your target audience of music or podcast.

Make sure that you accurately pinpoint the kinds of people who are likely to love your songs. Who will be standing in the front row of your music show? When figuring out such people, try to arrive at the narrower audience.

Know Your Audience

How should people respond to your music? In answering this question, find out which emotions your listeners should be evoking when they hear your music album. Also, how would you describe your music in a few words?

Can you write down some words that you think express your music band’s identity? If you can, then you will keep those words in mind while picking the design elements to create your album cover.

02. Get Inspiration

What inspires you to make music? You may be fascinated by some great artists, a particular event in your life, or anything else. Sometimes, this inspiration help draws unique album design ideas for the album cover. Make some notes and compare them with the identity notes you prepared. It may help you decide on your design process.

Get Inspiration

03. Choose A Color Scheme

Colors are the dominant element of your album design. A powerful feature of colors is that they evoke our emotions. So, when the audience sees the cover, its colors will stimulate some feelings and emotions of the music lovers. The emotions could be that of passion, love, aggression, etc. depending on the kind of music you make.

Choose A Color Scheme

As a musician, you would like your target audience to feel about your music in a certain way whenever they enjoy your music. So, the right use of color becomes your visual representation of the music you make.

This means that, for instance, your music is about playfulness and happiness, then you can use yellow and orange as the dominating colors to create an album design. But if the music is somewhat subdued and melancholy type, then you can express it by the use of gray and dark blue in the design.

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04. Use Fonts Carefully

Fonts are crucial to give a personality to your album cover design. You will use fonts at different places on the cover. Fonts are incorporated in the album title, brand name, the inner jacket of the album, and tracklist on the back. You can choose from a variety of fonts depending on the type of music your band produces.

The serif fonts should be a preference for serious and traditional such as classical and acoustic music. The serif fonts can be used if you play indie rock and electronic and other modern music varieties.

Use Fonts Carefully

Similarly, choose script fonts when the music is playful and even messy to invoke a variety of feelings. Display fonts should be your choice for heavy metal album covers.

Since the text on the album cover is used at different places, you can settle for a combination of font styles. The cover should be in a right album cover size to catch the attention of the audience. For instance, use display or script font for the brand name and title while a legible font will go well with the tracklist side of the cover.

You can keep the typography on the front more artistic than on the back, where legibility is a concern due to a lot of information in fine letters.

05. Pick The Right Imagery And Style

Imagery is another crucial design element you should pick carefully. Most musicians use photography of the music band or artists. But feel free to use any drawings, collages, and even abstract graphics.

You can even create collages using collage maker. But it is advisable to have an image of a face so that your cover evokes the right feelings and gets noticed. Remember that faces can convey your viewers’ feelings or moods.

album covers

When it comes to choosing the style, prefer minimalist design. This design style comprises only a few elements, and there is a lot of space left vacant. Minimalism is about conveying your brand message in a few design elements and in the simplest possible way.

For instance, just a vintage microphone with a few other elements can give your album cover a unique look with the right color and font choices.

06. Include The Vital Details

While designing an album cover is fun, do not forget to check the design for all the crucial details that you must include. Check that you have designed your music band’s brand name or album title that should go on the front cover. It should stand out.

album covers

However, some album covers do not have brand names as people are listening to music via streaming services. The name and other details are listed on the cover thumbnail in that case.

Make sure that the back cover of the album has the tracklist and that it is in the different typography. There should also be the licensing and legal information at the back cover.

07. Consider Different Sizes

Modern album covers come in different sizes due to multiple formats. So, consider the sizes as well. For instance, you intend to release vinyl, then think of the design that will go well with this size.

album covers

If the cover appears as a thumbnail, then consider this tiny size as well when planning the design. People will see the thumbnail cover on iTunes, Pandora, Spotify, and other such platforms.

These are the key basics that you must consider while creating an album cover on your own. After keeping them in mind, you can then proceed further confidently when using the album cover maker DIY tool.

Create An Album Cover On Your Own

Now that you know what basics to follow for designing your album cover art, you can even do the job without any outside help. Your small and upcoming music band need not spend your savings on album cover design. Without hiring an expensive designer, even you can create the cover all by your self without help from graphic designers.

All you need to do is to use the album cover maker DIY tool from Designhill. It is the easiest tool to design album art.

Album Cover Maker

The software is loaded with hundreds of images, colors, fonts, and other elements. Just drag your choice of imagery, colors, fonts, and other vital design elements and drop them in the design layout of the tool. That is all you will do to come up with a unique cover design that stands out for your music band.

The album cover maker is an online DIY tool based on HTML5 canvas. The tool comes loaded with an amazing album cover templates that are created by professional designers. You can choose any of these layouts as your unique idea to start with.

When Using The Designhill Album Cover Maker, You Will Create The Design In These Simple Steps In Minutes:

Step 1 – Click the “Generate Album Covers” button to begin with it.

Step 2 – Choose from hundreds of professionally designed layouts.

Step 3 – Upload your own photos or choose from over 1 million stock images.

Step 4 – Fix your images, add stunning filters and edit text.

Step 5 – Save and share.

Are You Looking for a New Graphic Designer?If Yes, Call Us on +1-855-699-2851 [times for calling 9am to 6pm EST (US)] or Register for a Free Design Consultation

Wrapping Up

Your album covers can help attract even more listeners and convert them into loyal followers of your brand of songs. But the design must stand out in terms of the use of colors, fonts, imagery, and other elements. You should stick to some proven tips for designing your album art.

Get Your Album Cover Design

Alice Jackson is a business consultant, blogger, social media enthusiast, online market analyst, amateur designer and an avid author at Designhill. She has written on several topics including social media marketing, SEO, content marketing, startup strategies and e-commerce. When she’s not writing, she loves spending her time reading romantic novels, Connect with her on Twitter: @jackson_alice1

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