How to Create Eye Catching Album Art

So you just finished up your demo or debut album. Congratulations! But now you need to decide how you want to visually represent your music. Even in this day and age of digital music downloads album art is a very vital aspect of getting your music heard. Think about your favorite albums and you will no doubt remember what the album cover looks like. There is really no limit as to what you can slap on the front of your cd case, but here are a few guidelines you should follow.

Analyze those album covers that really stand out in your mind. What makes them so great? How does it relate to the music? There really isn't a formula for figuring out what your album cover should be, but you can get some good ideas from other covers. Look at your favorite albums and try to understand why the artist chose that image to represent their music.

The most important thing to take into consideration when creating your album cover is the genre that your music falls under. You don't need to limit yourself to one category, but just have a general idea of what your music sounds like. This can help you decide what you shouldn't use on your cover. For example, if your music falls under the hard rock genre you probably don't want to use a colorful photo of sunflowers.

Decide what medium you want to use. Do you want some cool graphic art or would a photo work best? Do a few of each to help you decide, no reason to just work on one design. If you create a few and can't pick which one to use you can always use them on the back cover or booklet. Photos are the easiest option because almost any digital camera takes decent pictures and you usually don't have to go far to find a good subject. If you don't know how to create graphics using photoshop you can find someone who does. Check with local school art departments, although you may have to pay for their efforts if you go this route.

Color can be a big factor in how well your cover art depicts your music, as well as contrast. Bright contrasting colors work well for pop albums, while desaturated and dark colors work well for metal albums. Take my first example of the colorful photo of sunflowers. If you desaturated the color a bit and adjusted the contrast and turned the brightness down it might become more suitable for hard rock.

So how do you decide what the subject of your album cover should be? You could create an image of a skull with dynamite for your hard rock album, snap a sepia toned photo of a tractor in a field for your country album, or even take a photo of you and your band. Many bands and artists feature themselves on their album covers. Just remember what does and doesn't work. AC/DC might have lost a few fans had they decided to use a picture of themselves on stage with Madonna on their Back in Black album.

You can always create a perfect subject for your photos, even if you can't find one. You can take something that would work for a different genre and customize it for your music by using different camera angles, different lighting, adjusting contrast and brightness, or you can experiment with different depths of field. Just like the picture of the sunflowers you can customize your subject. Another example would be taking a stuffed toy and rolling it in the mud, even tearing some holes in it. This could create a subject suitable for music full of angst.

You can also obtain art from an actual artist, whether professional or amateur. Although you usually have to pay to use other people's art, you can sometimes get away with just giving them a free copy. I have seen deals worked out like this with a local band where the artist used the band to promote his paintings, he even designed their stage backdrop. Under all circumstances you need to remember to give the artist full credit in the liner notes of your album. Check out your local art department and ask around. You can also find royalty free artwork online. However, royalty free artwork is free for anyone to use, so don't be surprised if you see it somewhere else.

So how can you adjust the color and contrast of your photos if you don't know anything about Photoshop? Most digital cameras come with free imaging software for editing your pictures. You can also search online for free imaging software; you can even find trial versions of many products. If all else fails you can ask around and find someone that has the software. They might even be able to help you out with your project.

Let's say you're not the artistic type and wouldn't know a good cover if it smacked you in the face. No problem as long as you have fans. Ask them to submit artwork for your album. You can even ask them in the form of a contest, the winner gets their artwork on the front of your cd. Just remember to list them in the album credits

All things aside, the most important thing to remember is that there really is no limit. Dark colors could potentially work for a pop album, it's just not very common. As long as you don't violate any copyright laws you are good to go. Don't stress too much about your cover, because if your music is good enough it will sell itself and not need to rely on what your artwork looks like. Just remember that good artwork should give the person buying your cd a good indication to what you might sound like.