# Self-made album cover?



## sIR dORT (Aug 28, 2019)

Can it be done, and rate this. Simply threw a free photo into powerpoint and had some fun.


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## AllanH (Sep 1, 2019)

That's nicely done.


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## Niah2 (Sep 1, 2019)

Yup, never tried to do one myself out of fear. But maybe I will some day. Thanks for the inspiration


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## BenG (Sep 1, 2019)

Looks great!  

I would also check out Canva, which is a free, online design platform that's is super easy to use and comes with many templates for album covers!


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## cornelisjordaan (Sep 1, 2019)

Nice man! It can indeed be a bit scary but rewarding at the same time if you throw caution to the wind and have some fun.

Picmonkey is also quite a nice tool - not free though, but cheap, and you can cancel and subscribe willy-nilly as needed.


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## Ashermusic (Sep 1, 2019)

I did mine with Disc Cover, now part of Swift Publish.


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Sep 1, 2019)

Ashermusic said:


> I did mine with Disc Cover, now part of Swift Publish.



Where can I get that fancy sweater? :dodgy:


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## sIR dORT (Sep 2, 2019)

Thanks for all the replies guys, will check out those tools that some of you suggested.


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## aaronventure (Sep 2, 2019)

Nice! 

I do all of my art and graphics myself, always have. It's a skill like any other. Learn by copying first. There are plenty of resources to learn from, especially on YouTube. Easiest way to learn is to try and recreate cover art that you like. Colors and drawing, color grading, pay attention to all that stuff. If you don't know anything, pick a course or find a tutorial which has you create something. Either doing photo manipulation or creating art, it'll probably go through most of the tools and you'll learn how to use them. You'll develop your style along the way. I use Illustrator and Photoshop. 

You might want to check out https://www.photopea.com/, which is a free online alternative to Photoshop.


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## sIR dORT (Sep 11, 2019)

Here is an updated version, (edited the pic and conformed it to standard album cover size): I know this is a musicians forum, but still wanted some feedback. My goal is to make it look like it's professional and not done by some absolute rookie (which I am).


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## karelpsota (Sep 11, 2019)

Nice work!

A lot of my favorite producers do their own artwork. (Madeon, Thomas Bergersen)
I think it goes hand in hand with music. A lot of visual concepts have parallels in audio.

I made these last year:






Just wanted to do something functional that pops.
Maybe a bit too cartoonish, looking back at it.


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## Denkii (Sep 11, 2019)

sIR dORT said:


> Here is an updated version, (edited the pic and conformed it to standard album cover size): I know this is a musicians forum, but still wanted some feedback. My goal is to make it look like it's professional and not done by some absolute rookie (which I am).


3 things I I may criticize cod-philosophically:
1. Your full name is very small. This being printed out in actual cd album cover dimensions would be tiny and hard to read since it's already suffering from the uneven background.
2. I would get rid of your acronym at the bottom. It's either full name or acronym, not both.
3. Can you mask the bright cloud area around the e of retribution and dial down the brightness a bit? The contrast makes it hard to read the e.

Edit: put the full name where the acronym is if you're getting rid of it. It's way easier to read down there at the dark bottom. But if you do, don't make the full name too big since it will pop out way more than your album title due to the contrast.


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## sIR dORT (Sep 11, 2019)

Denkii said:


> 3 things I I may criticize cod-philosophically:
> 1. Your full name is very small. This being printed out in actual cd album cover dimensions would be tiny and hard to read since it's already suffering from the uneven background.
> 2. I would get rid of your acronym at the bottom. It's either full name or acronym, not both.
> 3. Can you mask the bright cloud area around the first e of retribution and dial down the brightness a bit? The contrast makes it hard to read the e.
> ...


Updated: I'm not good enough to do request 3 - I see what you mean but I don't think it's anything that is gonna kill it.


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## Denkii (Sep 11, 2019)

sIR dORT said:


> Updated: I'm not good enough to do request 3 - I see what you mean but I don't think it's anything that is gonna kill it.


I like this version way more.
But if you ask 3 people about design, you get 4 opinions so take it with a grain of salt and decide for yourself.

I like that it focuses clearer on the title now.


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## creativeforge (Sep 11, 2019)

sIR dORT said:


> Here is an updated version, (edited the pic and conformed it to standard album cover size): I know this is a musicians forum, but still wanted some feedback. My goal is to make it look like it's professional and not done by some absolute rookie (which I am).




Hi, if that's OK, I have a few observations I hope will help?

1- What genre of music is it?

2- Where did you find the image? Make sure use royalty-free images, or pay a license to the photographer. The photographer seems to have pulled it from Unsplash.com, so it would be important to contact him to find out why, and if it still can be used under the same license as when it was there.

3- The contrast between the bright top and the dark bottom is not exploited properly, imho, so we don't really know where to focus.

4- The title and your name seem to not be using the right font, or size, treatment, formatting, etc. Could be due to the high contrast isolating the top and the bottom.

Creativity often has quite a bit of trial and error.

Keep at it.


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## Kery Michael (Sep 11, 2019)

Hey, I think it looks good. Very moody, looks dark and epic. If I had to guess the genre: epic, hybrid orchestral? Though I love the simplicity of @karelpsota, there's no doubting what is contained within those albums. That's very effective.

IMHO, it's "goodness" depends on what you're going to do with it. I think it's excellent for packaging a dozen tracks or so for marketing to libraries. The cover communicates a certain, dramatic mood. But, if you're going to try to compete with pro style albums, then in that case it's a little generic. Because honestly, it's just a really nice nature picture (which you got from who knows where, you probably didn't take it yourself) and then put a title in front of it.


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## creativeforge (Sep 11, 2019)

I may be totally off from the direction your music is going, David, but just working on each item a bit.


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## sIR dORT (Sep 11, 2019)

It's a weird blend of two different styles, but the cover is supposed to translate to this sort of style:



The album is dramatic initially and then transitions to a less dramatic feel.


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## sIR dORT (Sep 11, 2019)

creativeforge said:


> Hi, if that's OK, I have a few observations I hope will help?
> 
> 1- What genre of music is it?
> 
> ...


Here is the site I got it from and what they said about using the photos:








Jeremy Bishop Pictures | Download Free Images on Unsplash


Download the perfect jeremy bishop pictures. Find over 100+ of the best free jeremy bishop images. Free for commercial use ✓ No attribution required ✓ Copyright-free ✓




unsplash.com




All photos published on Unsplash can be used for free. You can use them for commercial and noncommercial purposes. You do not need to ask permission from or provide credit to the photographer or Unsplash, although it is appreciated when possible.

I liked your pic a lot actually, with the exception of the skull (you didn't have a lot of info tho to be fair). What did you use to put those effects on it? I'll turn down the contrast, as that's been a common theme. Thank you for the feedback, and please keep it coming!


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## creativeforge (Sep 11, 2019)

I was looking for a different photographer as named by Google Images search. Yep, that's one of the main sites I go to in order to harvest some great photos. 



sIR dORT said:


> It's a weird blend of two different styles, but the cover is supposed to translate to this sort of style:
> 
> 
> 
> The album is dramatic initially and then transitions to a less dramatic feel.




That really helps set the atmosphere, yes. Thanks!


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## GdT (Sep 12, 2019)

I use a program called CD LabelPrint on Windows.
Lots of nice features.


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## sIR dORT (Sep 13, 2019)

@creativeforge if possible, would you mind sharing what program you used? Thanks!


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## José Herring (Sep 13, 2019)

Thanks for all the helpful hints. I used the Adobe online cover art editor. I will try the others suggested now as I found that one limiting. But for a first time it was good.

I also found a great way to send around your link: Check out this link (this isn't a plug just the easiest way to show you what can be done)









José Herring - Arcadia Overture


Stream on your favourite service through Amplify




ampl.ink





Scroll to the bottom to learn more.


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## ghobii (Sep 14, 2019)

josejherring said:


> Thanks for all the helpful hints. I used the Adobe online cover art editor. I will try the others suggested now as I found that one limiting. But for a first time it was good.
> 
> I also found a great way to send around your link: Check out this link (this isn't a plug just the easiest way to show you what can be done)
> 
> ...



Pretty cool, thanks. Wish I had known about that yesterday when I was giving out links to my new album.


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## sIR dORT (Sep 14, 2019)

I'm having a hard time getting farther than this. Tried to not make it contrast as much, but after seeing what creative forge did, it feels a bit flat. Help!


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## BenG (Sep 15, 2019)

Really enjoyed hearing your track and I just did a quick, little mock-up for fun in Canva! 
(Couldn't get your exact photo)

I think a cool, modern/futuristic font like Anurati would be even better and make things more 'cinematic'. (https://befonts.com/anurati-font.html)


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## sIR dORT (Sep 15, 2019)

BenG said:


> Really enjoyed hearing your track and I just did a quick, little mock-up for fun in Canva!
> (Couldn't get your exact photo)
> 
> I think a cool, modern/futuristic font like Anurati would be even better and make things more 'cinematic'. (https://befonts.com/anurati-font.html)


Wowza. Thats awesome (and thank you!). I'm torn though on the font and feel. The album isn't really trailer-style, just cinematic, so I don't want people to think based on the cover that it's hybrid-orchestral epic. Thoughts?


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## sIR dORT (Sep 15, 2019)

@BenG thank you for the idea, I started to use templates instead of doing everything myself and I'm getting results that are much better.

Came around this in 30 min. I know the white title isn't easy to read in stuff (still in progress), but here you go. I guess that I don't want people thinking that the album is gonna be trailer music, because it really isn't. It's very organic/cinematic, and then contemporary classical. Again though, please share your thoughts because I'm opinionated but I don't know ANYTHING.


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## BenG (Sep 15, 2019)

Ah, yes! Was totally making a epic/hybrid style trailer album cover and wasn't aware you were looking for something totally different! 

But definitely agree that templates are the way to go, especially when starting out. Later on you can modify them, add elements and more, until you can even start creating ones from scratch! 

Love what you have for the latest mock-up and the only issue is the faint text, was you mentioned. Maybe try it with a little placard behind it to separate from the image or something similar? Would love to see the final result!


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## sIR dORT (Sep 15, 2019)

How does this look? Still difficult to see?


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## sIR dORT (Sep 16, 2019)

*bump


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## angeruroth (Sep 16, 2019)

The last one is hard to read at lower resolutions, but looks nice. 
But... the top-right corner bugs me a bit, 'cause that's where the eyes go and it's white, so it "calls" too much. 

If you are really (I mean really) interested in design, may I suggest a book? Art & perception by Rudolph Arnheim. IMHO it's like Adler's book in the design realm.


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## re-peat (Sep 16, 2019)

sIR dORT said:


> bump




Still completely unreadable, Dort. If this were meant for a 12inch vinyl jacket, it wouldn't be that much of a problem, but since most people will, I assume, see this design only as a small thumbnail — either on the websites where the album is sold, or on their devices which they use to play it back with — you really should pay more attention, much more, to comfortable readability. (Readability can only be ignored when you're a firmly established artist and you have an eye-catching, instantly recognizable visual to decorate the front of your album with. "Dark Side Of the Moon" is a good example.)

While you're at it, I would suggest you also address another issue which, in my opinion, is just as bad, if not more so, than the problematic readability: the positioning and the alignment of the various elements that make up the design. The style of design you went for in this particular visual — clean, tight, sparse — demands pixelperfect alignment and solid centre-based balance. Otherwise it just looks sloppy and amateuristic.
In this case for example, the square isn't centered within the boundaries of the visual, and neither are the title and the artist's name. Furthermore, the latter isn't properly aligned with the square either (to an embarassing degree, if I may say so). It all combines, I'm sorry to have to say, into a visual that says "homemade, unprofessional effort".

If I may be honest, I wouldn't pursue this latest direction of the album design any further. For the simple reason that I don't see any satisfying solution for all the problems which this particular combination of image, typography and stylistic 'wrapping' presents, especially when considering the size at which the finished design will be most often looked at. There are solutions, sure, there are many, but they all require entirely different typographic choices and a wholly different approach to the layout.

In short, I would start all over again.
And when you do, maybe keep some of the following in mind. (I apologize for the unavoidable patronizing presumptuousness that's always such an unpleasantly awkward aspect of someone giving tips.)

• Never loose sight of the final size of your design while working. And check each and every one of your design choices against the consequences of that size. Very, very important.
• Visit a site where albums are presented — the iTunes store is a useful spot for this purpose —, see which designs stand out and try to analyze why it is they do. (Note that the best ones will usually have a strong focus of attention which immediately grabs the eye, through expert use of color, image, contrast, typo or some other design techniques.)
Your latest design, for instance, would, in its current state, simply be an unappealing, incommunicative square of dull grey with a few touches of red in it. It would go completely unnoticed amidst whatever else there is to see on the website.
• Choose fonts that are compatible. In your first design, for example, the two fonts were incompatible. Choosing and combining fonts — a most testing challenge that even experienced designers often have difficulty with — is actually *very* much like orchestrating. Just as orchestrating is all about picking, balancing and blending the right timbres in order to communicate musical content (and, in many cases, emotion) as effectively as possible, so is choosing fonts all about finding the right and aesthetically most pleasing typographic combination in order to express meaning (and, yes, emotion too). And your choice always has to be consistent with the rest of the design as well of course.
• Especially when still a somewhat inexperienced designer, obey the visually defining rules of whatever design style you decide to go with. Some styles require complete accuracy when it comes to positioning and alignment, while other styles allow, nay insist, that you work much looser. Know the idiom you're working in. Once you feel more confident as a designer, you can deviate all you want from rules, theories and axioms, but at this early first-toe-in-the-water stage, I would advise against it.
• Avoid cheap-looking graphic software preset solutions. I only mention this because the rather exaggerated shadows which you used behind the typo in your first design are a telling example of this painful practice. Exaggerated shadows, just like bevels, an abundance of lens flares, tasteless gradients, brushed metal surfaces, ill-chosen fonts, uninspired prefab lay-outs, templates, poor alignment and hundreds of other things which nearly all graphic software invites you to incorporate in your work, all scream 'amateur hour'. Don't go near any of them. (The designer of Jay's cover is to be seriously reprimanded for these very reasons too, I fear. That album cover exhibits all the flaws which graphic design software allows you to get away with — all too easily — when unhindered by whatever degree of talent and/or skill, or absence thereof, in the one using the software.)

__


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## sIR dORT (Sep 17, 2019)

re-peat said:


> In this case for example, the square isn't centered within the boundaries of the visual, and neither are the title and the artist's name. Furthermore, the latter isn't properly aligned with the square either (to an embarassing degree, if I may say so). It all combines, I'm sorry to have to say, into a visual that says "homemade, unprofessional effort".


Yea I realized that. Already fixed it.



re-peat said:


> • Never loose sight of the final size of your design while working. And check each and every one of your design choices against the consequences of that size. Very, very important.
> • Visit a site where albums are presented — the iTunes store is a useful spot for this purpose —, see which designs stand out and try to analyze why it is they do. (Note that the best ones will usually have a strong focus of attention which immediately grabs the eye, through expert use of color, image, contrast, typo or some other design techniques.)
> Your latest design, for instance, would, in its current state, simply be an unappealing, incommunicative square of dull grey with a few touches of red in it. It would go completely unnoticed amidst whatever else there is to see on the website.
> • Choose fonts that are compatible. In your first design, for example, the two fonts were incompatible. Choosing and combining fonts — a most testing challenge that even experienced designers often have difficulty with — is actually *very* much like orchestrating. Just as orchestrating is all about picking, balancing and blending the right timbres in order to communicate musical content (and, in many cases, emotion) as effectively as possible, so is choosing fonts all about finding the right and aesthetically most pleasing typographic combination in order to express meaning (and, yes, emotion too). And your choice always has to be consistent with the rest of the design as well of course.
> ...


I agree w/ you, but a lot of these issues (alignment being the exception) are with my first draft. I'm not using that one, so please keep that in mind. But I'll keep looking at the fonts and making them more readable/compatible.


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## Owen Smith (Sep 17, 2019)

sIR dORT said:


> Here is the site I got it from and what they said about using the photos:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I use unsplash as well and then use fotor.com to edit and add text to the photos. Before I was only using my own photos which was fun but limiting. Since discovering unsplash, I find they have a lot of really good variety and inspiring pictures on there that make it easier to find a picture that fits my song or to find one that inspires a song. For this track for example, looking on Unsplash helped me find the picture I used on Soundcloud and influenced the title I ended up choosing for the track:


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## Minko (Sep 18, 2019)

BenG said:


> Looks great!
> 
> I would also check out Canva, which is a free, online design platform that's is super easy to use and comes with many templates for album covers!



Plus one!

I used this for a lot of graphic things. But I also like to work with designers to get their input.


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## ghobii (Sep 20, 2019)

If you care enough about the music to want a good design for your album art, why not get a designer to do it?


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