{"id":25776,"date":"2020-06-02T00:15:29","date_gmt":"2020-06-02T00:15:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.unifiedmanufacturing.com\/?p=25776"},"modified":"2024-01-18T14:03:14","modified_gmt":"2024-01-18T14:03:14","slug":"8-practical-tips-designing-album-cover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unifiedmanufacturing.com\/blog\/8-practical-tips-designing-album-cover\/","title":{"rendered":"6 Practical Tips for Designing Album Artwork"},"content":{"rendered":"

If it’s your first time to release an album, chances are the album artwork is the last thing you think about that’s why it can be a total pain in the arse especially if you’re near your deadline.<\/p>\n

Do not underestimate how tedious making an album cover can be. It’s definitely not like submitting a high school project. It requires CD manufacturing<\/a> process and if you’re ordering by the hundreds (or thousands), you better make sure all the elements are done right. Here are some of the most practical tips for designing album cover:<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t print lyrics unless you have sufficient space<\/strong><\/h4>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Are you thinking of cramming the lyrics to 12 songs onto a four-panel digipak? Where are you going to put the album credits,\u00a0copyright info<\/a>, and\u00a0crowdfunding<\/a>\u00a0thank-yous? Who\u2019s going to be able to read that tiny font anyway?<\/p>\n

Lyrics in the album packaging are great\u00a0\u2013 if\u00a0you can read them. So if a six-page booklet insert or a giant foldout for your LP edition aren’t realities,\u00a0use the internet as a way to augment your album art and avoid clutter<\/strong>. Post your lyrics on your\u00a0website<\/a>\u00a0in a dedicated section that shares design elements with your album. Then, print\u00a0the URL to your website’s lyrics section on your album packaging.<\/p>\n

via<\/a><\/p>\n

Envision your album cover as a thumbnail<\/strong><\/h4>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The majority of people who encounter your album will do so online. They\u2019ll see a smaller\u00a0version on\u00a0digital music<\/a>\u00a0platforms like iTunes,\u00a0Spotify<\/a>, and Amazon, or on\u00a0review sites<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0blogs<\/a>. Often it will appear as small as a thumbnail.\u00a0Before you commit to an album cover design, shrink it way down. Does it still\u00a0capture your attention? If so, you\u2019ve got a winner.<\/strong>\u00a0If not, try a different approach for your album cover.<\/p>\n

Minimalism is in<\/strong><\/h4>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This is probably related to number three and number four above, but the starker the image, the more it seems to capture our attention.\u00a0Maybe the modern sensibility is, “Things’ll get shrunk, so things should stay simple.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

After all, it’d be really difficult to make out all the faces on the cover of\u00a0Sgt. Pepper\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0when reduced to a thumbnail.\u00a0<\/em>A\u00a0NYT<\/em>\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0from a few years back talks about this album art phenomenon in more detail.<\/p>\n

Print your\u00a0artist and album name clearly on the spine<\/strong><\/h4>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Imagine your\u00a0CD is sitting on the shelves of a\u00a0radio station<\/a>\u00a0library.\u00a0Can you find the disc among\u00a0all those\u00a0other albums? Many DJs are still heavily reliant on CDs, and they need to be able to pull your\u00a0disc<\/a>\u00a0off the shelves quickly.<\/p>\n

It’s for this very reason that many stations don\u2019t even accept albums\u00a0sent to them in thin sleeve packaging.\u00a0So if you\u2019re serious about a radio\u00a0promotion campaign<\/a>, you should consider packaging\u00a0your CDs in digipacks or jewel cases, and then be sure that the writing on the spine is big, bold, and highly legible.<\/strong>
\nText should be in vector format<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is ideal that all text used is in\u00a0vector-format<\/a>\u00a0so that is prints as clearly as possible \u2014 if this is desired. Also, try and use fonts that can be embedded into a PDF \u2013 additionally, it\u2019s worth converting all your type to outlines in the closing stages of your design work so you don\u2019t have any worries about sending a copy of your chosen font to the printers, where mistakes can be made.<\/p>\n

via<\/p>\n

Bleed Is Important\u2026<\/b><\/h4>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When you print one copy of something, it\u2019s easy to take time to ensure that it is trimmed\u00a0precisely<\/i>. When you have hundreds (or thousands) of the same something to cut, the task of cutting out individual sheets, with precision, becomes daunting.<\/p>\n

Commercial printers do have equipment that speeds up the process\u2014either by using pre-programmed measurements to cut each piece, or by cutting large quantities all at once\u2014but even the best pieces of equipment aren\u2019t 100% accurate all of the time (due to the limits of technology and paper stretch).<\/p>\n

The discrepancy is usually small, but, without bleed, even being half a millimeter off on cutting produces a noticeable white line down the edge of the paper. That\u2019s not what you want for your jewel case insert or digipak. The solution? Extend the album artwork slightly beyond the desired cut line\u2014i.e., add bleed.<\/p>\n

This gives the print shop a margin of error when trimming. That way, if they happen to be slightly off when cutting, the continued album artwork shows up instead of the white paper.<\/p>\n

In the printing industry, .125\u201d is a commonly requested bleed setting; this means the album artwork extends .125\u201d from the cut line on each side. This will be cut off, so do not<\/em>\u00a0include anything like text or titles in this area; please see the next comment about safety margins for more details.<\/p>\n

________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

James Hill<\/i><\/b> is a veteran of the music industry. He first worked at Warner Reprise Records then later joined Interscope\/ Geffen Records where he managed producers and songwriters and got his first platinum record for Keyshia Cole’s The Way It Is. He is now helping indie artists with branding and manufacturing through his company <\/i>Unified Manufacturing<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/a>, a CD\/DVD\/vinyl and merch company in LA.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If it’s your first time to release an album, chances are the album artwork is the last thing you think about that’s why it can be a total pain in the arse especially if you’re near your deadline. Do not underestimate how tedious making an album cover can be. It’s definitely not like submitting a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":25778,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cd-manufacturing","category-dvd-packaging","category-graphic-design"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unifiedmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unifiedmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unifiedmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unifiedmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unifiedmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25776"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.unifiedmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38641,"href":"https:\/\/www.unifiedmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25776\/revisions\/38641"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unifiedmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unifiedmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unifiedmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unifiedmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}