How to design an Album Cover in minutes

Learn how to design an album cover in minutes that captures attention and represents your music perfectly. These expert tips will help you create visually striking covers that make a lasting impression on listeners.

How to design an album cover in minutes

by Chris Robley from the Reverbnation Blog

It really is possible to make good cover artwork for your next album or single in minutes. 

And that’s great news. Because whenever you’re about to distribute new tracks to the world, you’ll have plenty of other tasks already waiting on your music-release checklist. So any chance to save yourself time (without skimping on quality) will be welcome!

Keep in mind though, I said it’s possible to make a good album cover in minutes. Not guaranteed. Because do-it-yourself design can involve a lot of trial-and-error. 

But personally, whenever I’ve created usable album-art quickly, it’s because I leaned into the three principles below. I hope these same tips help you create cover art you’re proud of, whether the process takes you 5 minutes or 5 hours. 

Why every music release needs good album cover artwork

There are at least four solid reasons why you need unique cover artwork every time you release new music. (And hey, if you have to do something, why not do it well, right?)

Cover artwork helps you:

• Convey the vibe of your music or genre in an instant, establishing listener expectations through visual branding.
• Tell a new chapter in the ongoing story of your musical journey. 
• Differentiate your music releases when a listener scrolls through multiple titles in your catalog. 
• Distribute your music in the first place, since streaming platforms require unique artwork!

The “small” decisions for your cover artwork

There’s a lot to dig into when considering how to design compelling cover artwork for a music release. Detailed stuff. Things like typography, fonts, colors, and logos. 

Or whether to make your cover artwork with Canva, Photoshop, or some other tool. (If you want to get design done quickly, Canva is a great solution, btw).

Or how to brainstorm concepts for what your cover artwork should convey about you or the music.

Or which file formats and dimensions you need. 

But the tips I’m gonna share today are less DESIGN-y. Less formal. In fact, they could just as easily be applied to music production. But they’ll give you an assist when you’re trying to catch your footing in the world of visual art. 

They’re concepts that will help you get started, move in a direction, and (hopefully) finish an album cover you love. 

Here goes!

1. Lean into simplicity

Minimalism can be a cool, sophisticated aesthetic. And because it relies on “simplicity,” (visual artists are probably rolling their eyes right now) minimalist design often feels more timeless too. 

But the important point to make here in regards to saving time is that, as an approach, minimalism helps you stay focused. Because there’s fewer elements to juggle. 

But the important point to make here in regards to saving time is that, as an approach, minimalism helps you stay focused. Because there’s fewer elements to juggle. 

Think of music production. Fewer instruments? Less clutter! So your ears can hear each part better, and more quickly determine whether those parts work — both on their own and together. 

Same goes for visuals. In fact, it can really help to make just ONE element the focus of your design. 

For instance, the iconic self-titled album by The Beatles (The White Album):

I suppose we could argue about which thing is the featured element: The blank space? Or the band name? Either way. It’s simple. Sooooo simple. 

There are also many different ways to be simple. Minimalist album covers can be futuristic…

Retro…

Energetic…

Direct…

Stylishly austere…

Fun…

Or referential (assuming this one was meant to give a nod to Spinal Tap)…

…and much more.

So minimalism gives you opportunities to explore your brand expression without complicating the design. 

2. Borrow & destroy

Since I don’t have a background in graphic design, I don’t know what the official term might be for this approach, but let me put it in musical terms for a second:

THE MUSIC-PRODUCTION EQUIVALENT OF “BORROW & DESTROY”

It’s time-intensive and sometimes expensive to track real drums in a studio. You need the studio space. The drummer. The drums. All the mics. An engineer that knows how to capture good sounds that work in the context of the mix. Oh, plus a good take. 

You’ve probably heard stories of decadent studio sessions from the 1970s and 1980s where this process could take WEEKS just to record the drum parts. 

There was a problem: The cost of recording real drums. 

So then came the solutions: Enter drum machines, sampling, canned beats, all the way up to modern drum-modelling software.  

None of these answers to the problem, in-and-of-themselves, are better or worse than real drums. It’s all how they’re used in context. The point is, these solutions save you time, often save you money, can be used in wildly creative ways that enhance your songs, often sound better than DIY-recorded drums anyways, and… they each involve a bit of borrowing or curatorial exploration.

Now, to ensure that the “borrowed” musical elements don’t sound obviously borrowed, or trigger any sonic-fingerprint warning or Content ID strikes, or leave your listener saying, “hey, they just copied the same preset as everyone else this year,” it’s a good idea to alter the source sound. Warp and tempo-shift it. Pitch it up or down. Cut and paste. Apply various effects so it sounds mangled or distorted. Use drastic EQ so it sits in the mix quite differently from the original usage.

Destroy that original sound until it becomes something unrecognizable and new. 

NOW APPLY THAT SAME “BORROW & DESTROY” APPROACH TO YOUR ALBUM COVER 

It takes time (and sometimes money) to capture original photography or visual art you may want to feature in your album cover. So forget about building your “own” design from the ground up. Instead, borrow and destroy. 

Canva has a tool to remove the background of images. Use that ten times in ten minutes and it’s a quick way to make a collage. 

Free photo libraries can be a great resource too, as long as you truly have the right to use the image and you alter the source material so significantly that you don’t run the risk of there being identical artwork out there. 

Or start with a small visual element and have an AI image-creation tool attempt to magically “expand” the image. The result may be full of glitches and strange artifacts, but that actually could be a cool look. 

My point is: You don’t have to start “from scratch.” Borrow. Destroy. To create something new. 

3. Don’t be precious

When it comes to saving time, we can be our own worst enemies. Without a deadline, there’s very little pressure to say you’re finished with something. 

But for as much as I’ve already said that your album cover artwork is important, that it should look cool, that it should convey a vibe, and that it gives you an opportunity to make a good first impression…

… your album artwork also kinda doesn’t matter that much.

WAIT, WHAT!?

Hear me out (and don’t tell any graphic designers I said this): With the sheer volume of music output these days, even bigger artists and labels are getting less precious about their cover art. And a lot of album covers today look kinda trashy.

Sometimes that’s an intentional design choice:

Sometimes it’s expedience: “Hey, it’s just a single. Let’s not not be precious. We’ve got another song coming in 6 weeks anyway.”

Social trends have bent the 21st Century increasingly towards an aesthetic that feels brash and spontaneous. Which conveys relatability even when it’s ironic:

So while there’s still an occasional place for conspicuously ambitious concepts (I’m thinking about the classic 1970s Pink Floyd album covers), for many artists today, that approach would feel too artificial. 

And again, to aid your efforts at speedy design, this is good news. Because you may actually benefit from an album cover that looks… rushed, sloppy, drunk, or whatever other word you might use to describe the feeling that “hey, I made this quick and it’s fun, so join the party!”

In other words, I’m not taking this design too seriously. No pressure.

YOUR INITIAL IMPRESSION MIGHT NOT LAST

You may also be familiar with that strange phenomenon where a dumb band-name stops feeling dumb once you love the music, and you forget the name initially sounded awkward. 

The same thing happens with album cover artwork. At first you might think, “ah, weird cover.” But once you love the songs, the artwork becomes retroactively imbued with the magic of the music. 

That can happen for your music and album artwork too. So don’t be too precious. Work quickly. You don’t have to publish the image you create in five or ten minutes. But you could!

Conclusion

These tips don’t give you specific action-items.

In fact, they’re the opposite. They’re meant to show you that you have freedom to explore, and less pressure than you think. Hopefully that provides you with inspiration and permission to get started, move fast, and complete the task of designing your own album cover artwork. 

Once you’ve got an image that fits your sound, what else do you need in order to release that music to the world? 

Check out our complete music distribution checklist!