How to Prepare Album Artwork

You're a recording artist, and you finally have enough original music to produce your first CD. But a CD isn't officially complete without a CD insert and cover art. You may not think it's terribly important, but album artwork can mean the difference between your CD flying off the store shelves or just collecting dust.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Think about cover artwork that fits the message of your work or says something about you as an artist. Or choose something that's entirely off the wall, surprising and memorable. Don't forget about the back insert page that is often printed double-sided and lists the song names and a place to learn more about you.

2. Look at the work of several artists or photographers and share your ideas. Ask to see some rough sketches of ideas before you make a decision. Choose the one who seems to understand you and your music the best and can offer high-quality album artwork at a reasonable price.

3. Make sure that any artwork you use for your CD case is the best quality so that it can be enlarged in the future for other promotional items.

4. Choose a design so that people will immediately recognize the genre of music you're performing.

5. Consider how many pages you want inside your jewel case. You can have as few as one small sheet or as many as you want in groups of four. You can also have your liner notes printed on one continuous folded sheet.

6. Find out from the CD replication company or printer what dpi (dots per inch) they require for printing, as well as how they want the artwork supplied to them.

Tips & Warnings

• Make back-up copies of anything you give to your printer, and make sure they have a hard copy of what they're printing.

Resources

• Expert Village tells how to choose professional album artwork.
• The Sound on Sound website helps with designing cover art.
• CopyCats Media can handle your CD replication and artwork.