In your bid to join the league of the biggest independent artists, you'll have to become a graphics designer and even a music promoter. While you can hire an expert music producer and sound engineer, these professionals will not create an album cover for your music.
There's also another issue, and it's about the availability of resources. Your art isn't yet lucrative enough for you to hire music producers, graphic designers, social media managers, or music promoters. You'll have to take on these jobs to be able to list your albums on music platforms for independent musicians.
If it's about being a graphic designer, you're in luck. There's Canva for you to leverage to create an album cover for your music. You don't even have design or Photoshop experience to use Canva.
Canva has been helping singers, independent musicians, and songwriters with their branding in many ways.
Let's get into how to create an album cover for your music using Canva;
1. Download Royalty-Free Images
You'll need to design killer album covers to make the most of the available music platforms for independent musicians. To start, you'll need royalty-free images, which you can get from
Pixabay,
Unsplash,
Pixel,
Flickr, and many others.
If you check out these places, you'll find extensive collections of royalty-free images you can use in your album covers.
Take your time to locate a unique image on these royalty-free image websites. You won't want to use an image used by another band or artist as your album cover art. Yes, it's more like a needle in a haystack, but you'll always find a unique one.
2. Create An Account on Canva
Canva is a free-to-use graphics tool with a vast range of capabilities. This is an excellent tool for individuals looking to complete their designs themselves.
There are a lot of features that can indeed be of good use to even the most prominent independent artists. Once you register on Canva, choose the design you'd like to make; in your instance, you'll select "CD Cover."
There is no need to worry about the dimensions; Canva has you covered.
3. Get Inspiration From a Template
There are tons of album cover templates on Canva from which you can choose. Just continue scrolling until there are at least a few that you like. You can tweak any of these templates to suit your needs and taste.
Don't be in haste; take your time to scroll up and down a bit. You'll likely end up with a template that goes along with your songs.
There is no harm in creating something from scratch, but these templates will give you the artistic inspiration you need for an album cover.
4. Upload Your Royalty-Free Images
Locate the upload tab on the left-hand side of the screen. Once this is uploaded, you can switch things up. You can drag in your preferred images to replace whatever is in the template.
The beauty of Canva lies in the little effort required to replace the template's images. Little drags, wiggling, and tweaking are all that are needed to place your pictures.
5. Add Filters and The Texts
That's not where it ends; you need to create an album cover for your music and make it pop. Click the edit image button and work with the different image editing features available.
Look around; the filters and text options available are limitless. Find something that aligns with your music.
Reach deep into your music and create something with the intensity and warmth that befits your song.
Final Thoughts
You have to practice and play around with Canva to create a masterpiece. No one will expect you to deliver top-notch album cover art on the first try. However, keep in mind that your album cover reflects who you are as an independent artist. That's why you should put real thought into what you create.
As you become one of the most prominent independent artists, you may need to settle for a professional graphics designer for your album cover art. We hope you get there soon.
You can always rely on Disctopia as one of the best music platforms for independent musicians. We'll give you all the support you need to achieve your goals.
