Books on Album Cover Art and How to Design Them
They say to never judge a book by its cover, and while nosotros'd similar to recall that the same goes for albums—it'south the music on the inside that counts—there's something to be said for a well-designed album comprehend. It's your chance to catch the attending of new listeners and requite a visual representation of the music inside. A great album cover can inspire someone to fish your vinyl out of the stack, encourage a streaming listener to learn more than about yous, and add a whole new layer of artistry to your work.
Although having an original and expressive anthology cover design is important, the procedure itself doesn't have to exist daunting. Nosotros've assembled a comprehensive guide to designing your album cover, from the early brainstorming stages to finding the design way that syncs perfectly with your music.
Contents
- Before yous start your design process
- Continue an identity quest
- Find inspiration
- Key components of designing your encompass
- Colour
- Typography
- Imagery and style
- Don't forget the details
- Think big…and small-scale
- Finding the right designer/artist
- What'south next?
Before you lot start your design process
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You might be tempted to immediately start sketching your vision for your anthology comprehend, but the starting time pace in any design procedure should e'er be to take a few steps abroad from the design entirely. Instead of launching right into ideas for your cover, focus on doing a lilliputian identity quest first—it volition help y'all later when it comes to thinking about design.
Go along an identity quest
i. Who are you?
You tin can get as existential with this ane as y'all like, only really focus on who you lot are as an artist, band, musician, etc. How would yous define yourself?
two. Who is your audience?
Earlier you bound to answer "anybody," call back about this one a petty more deeply. Who are you trying to reach with your songs? Who are the kinds of people continuing in the front row of your show? While information technology'southward a great goal to attain everyone with your music, you probable have a slightly narrower audience. Figuring out who that is can help you cater your album design to their interests.
3. What practise you want your listeners to experience when they hear your music?
Music tin can sometimes experience intangible—how could you depict it in words? But whenever someone makes music, they have an thought of how they want people to reply to information technology. Recollect nigh the emotions you want your listeners to have when they hear your album.
4. Elevator pitch your sound: what are the fundamental words?
The elevator pitch is but as important for a band or artist every bit it is for the founder of a visitor—you should be able to succinctly describe what information technology is you lot practice. So, if you're in an elevator with someone and you've got 30 seconds to describe what your music is like, what would you tell them?
Take notes
Accept some notes from your identity question session. Write down the words that have the most meaning for you so that when information technology comes to thinking about design elements, you'll already take a expert sense of what you're hoping to accomplish. Ultimately, your album cover is a way for you lot to express your band's identity—but like you practice with your music—and so it should exist in line with your sound.
Find inspiration
As a musician, you know that inspiration is important. Music does not simply occur out of cipher; it needs to be pulled from somewhere. When it comes to song writing, yous may be inspired past an event, a piece of art, an image, a sound, a feeling, etc. Y'all tin can think about designing your album cover in a like way—what is inspiring that visual representation? Possibly you'll think about the same inspirations that struck y'all in your song writing, effectively translating that musical inspiration into images.
In addition to thinking about the inspiration for your own work, it's e'er helpful to think about who you admire and draw ideas from their work. What are some album covers that you lot are drawn to? What do you lot like nearly them? Be sure to take some notes—combined with your identity notes, these will assist yous narrow your design process.
Primal components of designing your embrace
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There are several elements that come into play for every album cover, from the colors and imagery used on the front cover to the typography and text on the back. Isolating each component volition help you accept things pace by step, rather than getting overwhelmed with the whole pattern all at in one case.
Color
Color selection is an important attribute to all pattern, and the aforementioned is true of album covers. Even a blackness- or white-heavy album cover represents a thoughtful decision on colour: it evokes a different feeling than a vibrant, multicolored embrace, correct? With and so many colors to cull from in the spectrum, nosotros've come up up with a few different means to help yous identify what colors to use in your design.
Color psychology
In that location is a lot more to color than might see the center, and to learn more near colour theory and how information technology is used in branding, be sure to check out this in-depth guide. Just for now, the quick explanation is that colors can make us feel a certain way. They have emotional attachments, which is why companies often utilise specific colors in their logos or product packaging. The same can be practical to album covers, because as a musician, yous want your audience to experience a certain way when they hear your music. The album encompass—a visual representation of your music—allows you to enforce that feeling in another way. If, for case, you lot desire your listeners to feel happy and playful when they heed to your music, y'all might want to lean into yellow and orangish in your encompass blueprint. For more subdued and melancholy music, darker colors, especially nighttime blue and gray, will help set the tone in your album encompass pattern.
Color scheme
If you've identified a colour that yous'd like to use in your anthology cover, you may want to stick with it throughout—if it worked for The Beatles with the White Album, it could piece of work for yous as well—but yous may not exist looking for a minimalist, monochrome await for your cover. Fortunately, color theory also identifies complementary colors to help yous select secondary and third hues to go forth with your dominant color.
Monochromatic basically means using all 1 color—but it can be one color in many shades to offering some more dimension. The overwhelming feeling of a monochrome cover is one of simplicity and minimalism. Information technology can be selected to tap into a certain mood, or can be used equally a way for the creative person to have the music speak for itself. This can terminate up being a very bold choice.
You've probably seen a color wheel before, which is a great central into choosing colors that work well together. For complementary colors, the rule is, the colour directly across from the colour on the wheel is the most complementary—so if you've chosen yellow, violet would naturally correspond. Complementary colors bring out the best in each other, and tin create dynamic visuals.
You lot tin besides become for analogous colors—colors that are close to each other on the wheel, so they naturally work in harmony. This gives you more dimension than monochrome colors, just they tin still have a blending issue—they may non stand out as much as complementary colors.
Another option is picking triadic colors, which effectively draw from three equal sections on the color wheel. These tend to be more stimulating than coordinating colors, just the color meanings may not mesh as well if y'all're trying to tap into color psychology.
In addition to working with the colour schemes in a higher place, another selection a band or creative person tin can make is to go for more anachronistic colors. Instead of adopting colors that piece of work in harmony with one another, you lot can opt for stark combinations to elicit a different kind of feeling. It can advise nonconformity, throwback to psychedelic inspiration, or simply daze the viewer. Take a look at the ambivalent colors in the Foes album design past JETARTS—it certainly makes you feel visually shocked when you look at it. Of course, you'll desire to go dorsum to your identity questions and recollect about what y'all want your listener to feel earlier adopting wild color combinations.
Typography
Just like colors, the fonts you choose for your album cover tin can help communicate your band'southward personality. It's also important to remember about all of the different places you'll desire typography—the album title and band proper name, runway list on the back, and even the inner jacket, which is anthology cover adjacent.
Serif fonts are the old-standby when it comes to fonts. These are noted by their serifs—the little anxiety at the terminate of messages. Serif fonts are thought to be more serious and traditional, Times New Roman and Cambria are common examples. Serif fonts pair well with classical, audio-visual or operatic music.
Sans serif fonts are fonts without serifs, pregnant fonts without the lilliputian anxiety. Helvetica and Arial are ordinarily used sans serif fonts. These fonts are often considered more modern and streamlined than their serif predecessors. Sans serif fonts tin be used with a diversity of music, including electronic and indie rock—it'due south a versatile option for mod music.
Script fonts are cursive fonts that emulate handwriting. These can range from very traditional and ornate to playful and even messy. The different styles of script fonts mean they tin can be used to invoke a variety of feelings. Script fonts are used for a broad range of music types—scratchy, messy fonts might be used with alternative rock, where a precise signature style might be used for a gimmicky solo creative person.
Every bit the proper name suggests, display fonts are decorative and meant to display. They are too referred to as novelty fonts and can often be constitute on volume covers or signage. Like script fonts, there is a range of styles for this blazon of font. Gothic brandish fonts are frequently featured on heavy metal anthology covers, and a playful, bubbly brandish font could exist used for a children'southward music album.
Considering you'll need to use text in dissimilar places on your anthology embrace, you tin can use a combination of font styles. For case, you could opt for a script or display font for the album title and ring proper noun, and a more than hands legible font for the rails list and other pertinent information. The typography on the front of the cover tin be more artistic than on the dorsum, where readability is more important.
Imagery and fashion
After colors and typography, imagery is an important attribute to any album cover blueprint. Musicians normally employ photography, particularly of the band or principal artist, but nearly anything is possible, from abstract graphics to drawings and collages.
We talked a bit virtually colour psychology, and at that place's some psychology when it comes to images likewise. Images of faces—whether a photo or drawing—tend to leap out more than other pictures. If you're trying to catch the attention of a potential listener, using an epitome of a face up—along with choosing the right colors and fonts—can assistance ensure that your embrace gets noticed. Faces likewise convey expressions, which tin can reflect on the viewer'south mood or feelings. This can help tie into the feelings you desire your music to inspire in your listeners.
And an important, legal notation: If you decided to use photography or artwork for your cover, be certain to have the epitome rights!
Any graphics that are used on an album should communicate with the anthology itself, so information technology'due south of import to use them thoughtfully. A painted watercolor landscape might connect well with a mellow, instrumental album, merely it would probably send a mixed signal if the album was EDM. Similarly, the choice to not include graphics should feel purposeful, and not similar yous just couldn't think of something to put on the encompass.
Minimalism can also make a statement in album cover design. Going simple allows the focus to ultimately lie with the music within the album. Minimalism is an on-tendency album design manner though, so information technology's a skilful thought to effort to stand out in a unlike mode—maybe you opt for an all-blackness encompass, but instead of using white blazon, you opt for a colorful ombre.
Shown above, designer Creative Spirit took the simple graphic of a vintage microphone and cast it in a punchy salmon color, overlayed on mint light-green. Although it's undeniably minimalist, the designer's color choices make the comprehend feel more bold, while maintaining a balanced, simple design. For the encompass design on the right, designer Edina plays with the album'south championship From Scratch and made scratch marks the focal point of the minimalist comprehend.
The overall style of your album cover is the combination of colour, imagery, and typography. These three elements should work together in harmony to create the desired effect. Calling dorsum to your identity questions and your inspiration, you should feel like your pattern is in line with that practice.
Don't forget the details
When designing your anthology encompass, it's okay to get swept away in the design—it tin can exist really fun! But when y'all come down from your design buzz, be certain to recall the integral album components you need to include.
1. Band and album proper noun
You don't take to include the band or album title on the front of your anthology cover, but it needs to be on the spine. Sometimes the album name or ring name is the primary design element for the embrace and in this case, the proper name has to stand out. A reason why there's currently a tendency to not include names on the encompass design is because people are now commonly listening via streaming services, where artist, title, and anthology name are all listed beside the encompass thumbnail. And then if graphics are important, you can gratuitous up some necessary design space by leaving names out of the film. This is a great selection for digital-merely album releases.
ii. Track list
The back comprehend of the album should include the anthology's track listing. Although the typography can exist different here than on the forepart of the cover, information technology should still communicate stylistically and be easy to read at the same time.
iii. Licensing and legal information
Be sure to accept a space on the dorsum comprehend or inside for all licensing and legal information.
4. Piece of cake on the Internet
Resist your impulse to put social handles anywhere on your album cover. While Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook are used regularly today, who knows what will exist the ascendant social trends in 5, 10, or even twenty years. Using handles can unwillingly date your album. If y'all desire to include your band's URL, practice so on the back cover or liner note.
5. Liner note
While not technically part of the album comprehend, the inner jacket should be designed with idea to the style of the album cover—it should experience like an extension of the design. You'll desire to apply similar fonts for song lyrics and band information and choose a color scheme that communicates with the overarching design.
Think big… and pocket-sized.
Designing an album cover in 2017 is not like it was in 1977. You lot need to call up about multiple formats when considering your design. For example, if you're releasing vinyl, you demand to think of what your pattern will look like in that size, as well as the size of a CD. You also need to consider how the cover volition await equally a thumbnail, equally people will likely see it on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, and other platforms. The image should not require squinting or illicit defoliation from the viewer.
Finding the right designer
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Having thought through your ring'southward identity and all of the necessary style points for your album, you're ready to hire a designer! Although you may be wary of letting someone else take the reins of your album cover, a professional designer is not only super capable and experienced in analogy and graphics, just will also ensure that your ideas are brought to life in the best way. They'll know what's possible, what volition look the best, and they're efficient and effective. While DIY has its place—say, a handmade Valentine?—investing in a well-designed embrace will ensure you're putting out the best product.
Communication is cardinal for both you and your prospective designer, so it'southward of import to make sure you're accurately relaying your needs. If you lot're articulating what you're looking for, a professional designer volition exist able to realize it for you.
A potential designer red flag? Your designer seems more interested in their artwork than your vision. While it's helpful to have artistic feedback on your ideas, it's important that yous practice not let your projection migrate abroad from the core of what your music is all about. Rather, you should be working together to make sure you're creating a product you're happy with.
Originality is of import. You'll share your inspirations with your designer, but y'all'll also desire to stand out. So, be open to suggestions and make sure that your designer tin can describe from inspiration while creating something new and fresh.
A skilful way to get a pattern you experience adept about is to launch a blueprint competition. This will allow you to see different blueprint options and provide feedback for what works for you.
What's next?
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Once you have your anthology cover design complete, your album is ready to amaze your fans and captivate new listeners. Whether you're doing a digital-but release or a vinyl anthology, your album comprehend can help yous draw in the crowd. Time to stone!
Looking for a professional album cover that is in tune with your music? Outset your album cover contest today!
Source: https://99designs.com/blog/design-other/how-to-design-album-cover/
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