With more than 356 million active monthly users, Spotify stands as one of the most successful and widely-used streaming services. Whether you’re there to share your podcasts or music with the world, or just chill out to content uploaded by others, you need to sort your profile out. Among many other things, that entails getting the Spotify cover art size right.
On Spotify, these cover arts can be used on a variety of items, including playlists (in which case, they’re known as Spotify playlist covers), albums, and singles. Every time someone looks at any of those things on your profile, they’ll see that art.
Considering that, if your cover art gets pixelated or cut off, it’s gonna…well, look bad.
If you’re worried about that, keep reading. In this article, we’ll share the recommended Spotify cover art size, how to nail the designing process, and some helpful tips.
Let’s dive right in.
Table of Contents
What’s the Ideal Spotify Cover Art Size?
As per official recommendations, the perfect Spotify cover art size is 640 x 640 pixels. This is an aspect ratio of 1:1, which means it should be a perfect square.
You’ll find different recommendations for cover art size on Google. But the ones shared above (640 x 640 pixels) will give you the best quality. Besides, it’s what the folks at Spotify recommend. However, you can use a photo resizer tool to adjust the dimensions of the cover art.
Besides the size, here are some additional recommendations when it comes to Spotify cover art:
- The file size of your Spotify cover art shouldn’t exceed 4MB.
- Spotify only supports TIFF, JPG, or PNG formats for cover art.
- Your cover art should be encoded with sRGB color space at 24 bits per pixel.
Furthermore, Spotify doesn’t support cover art with orientation metadata.
Stick with the rules above, and you’ll be fine.
Why Your Spotify Cover Art Matters
Spotify is a streaming platform where artists, misc. content creators, and brands can share their talent with the world. Considering that, your cover art takes the backseat if you think about the priority of things.
While the actual content (playlists, albums, etc.) you put out matter the most, the cover art can be beneficial too.
Here are some reasons why:
- A captivating cover art can help your content stand out from the rest and get more engagement.
- It can leave a positive first impression of your content.
- Cool art can also play a role in making your content go viral.
The point is – if your cover art isn’t on-point and looks unprofessional, your fans and followers won’t be impressed.
Use Pixelied to Create Appealing Spotify Cover Art
Creating new Spotify cover art can be challenging. There are many Shopify playlist cover makers out there that can help, but they’re very limited in terms of their features.
On the other hand, not everyone can use tools like Illustrator and Photoshop to whip up designs.
Luckily, there’s an easy fix. Enter: Pixelied – a powerful online graphic designing tool that’s giving sites like Canva a run for their money.
Here’s a short, 3-step tutorial on how you can get started:
1. Launch the Editor
Click here to fire up the free Pixelied editor with the ideal Spotify cover art size locked and loaded.
You can use the ready-made Spotify cover art templates to get started in no time.
This is what it looks like:
Pixelied offers a ton of other ready-to-use templates for web and social media design.
2. Start Designing
One thing that makes Pixelied so great is its extensive list of easy-to-use tools. Unlike traditional graphic design platforms, you don’t have to worry about feature-overload.
Some of the best features include free stock photos, custom file uploads, image background removal, and much more.
There are two ways you can go about creating cover art using those tools:
a) Upload Your Own Files and Design
If you already have something ready to go and want to adjust it to finalize your design, simply upload it on Pixelied and start designing.
To do this, click on “My Files” in the bottom left corner in the tool bar.
If this is the first time you’re using Pixelied (or you’ve never uploaded any files of your own), it will show “No Files” by default. Upload your files by either clicking on the browse button and navigating to the files stored on your device, or simply drag and drop them to the little square, as shown above.
Once you upload the file(s), they’ll show up underneath where it says “Uploads out of folders.” To load a file onto the canvas, click on it once.
Drag any of the corners of your design to adjust it to the canvas size.
Make sure that the corners don’t get cut off.
b) Create Something from Free Images, Elements, & Illustrations
If you don’t have any files of your own (or would like to add more to your design), you can also whip up something from scratch with Pixelied.
Not only can you source millions of free stock images from Unsplash and Pixabay directly onto the editor, but can also select from large collections of illustrations and elements.
It only took me less than 5 minutes to design it. And I’m the farthest thing from a designer!
You can also add text to your images (choose from hundreds of free fonts or upload your own) and use icons.
3. Download!
Once you’re done designing your album or playlist cover photo for Spotify, all there’s left to do is to download it.
Remember – it’s all free, so you don’t have to worry about any hidden charges or trials.
To get your design, click on the Download button at the top right corner.
At this point, you can select the format in which you want your file (select JPEG or PNG), the quality, and the size. After specifying those things, hit the second Download button below.
5 Best-Practices to Get Your Spotify Cover Art Right
All in all, it’s easy to create stunning, professional-looking Spotify cover images using Pixelied. With our custom editor, you won’t have to worry about sticking with the recommended Spotify cover art size.
With that out of the way, there are some Spotify-specific tips that you should keep in mind when designing your cover.
Let’s have a look:
1. Stay Clear of Certain Elements
Spotify gives its users the freedom to express their creativity.
However, keep in mind that there are streamers from all ages, backgrounds, and ethnicities on this platform.
For that reason, there are certain boundaries that all users must respect when putting out content in the wild. They’ve shared those boundaries in their community guidelines.
As far as your cover art is concerned, try NOT include the following elements:
- Sexually Explicit Content – your cover art should not include sexually explicit content. This includes pornographic material and nudity. The actual audio content, however, can be explicit (and may be published with an E tag).
- Violent Content – content that depicts or advocates any kind of violence, threat, offense, or abuse is a no-go.
- Copyright Content – this is a no-brainer. Make sure that you don’t incorporate copyright-protected content in your cover art.
Finally, strive to leave any offensive or defamatory elements out of your art.
Doing so will prevent your content from being banned or flagged.
2. Align Text (if Any) with the Content
You don’t necessarily have to add any text to your Spotify cover image. It can just be a vague picture with no information.
However, if you do decide to include some text, make sure that it aligns with what the content actually is. In other words, there shouldn’t be any information mismatch.
The goal of the text should be to provide some context to the streamers.
For instance, when it comes to music, the cover art should include:
- Name of the track
- Artist name
- The album/volume
Here’s an album cover art example that checks all of the boxes:
Misleading content can disrupt the experience for your fans. In worst cases, Spotify can even remove your content if a certain number of people report it.
3. Stay On-Brand
If you’re serious about establishing a strong presence on Spotify, work on your personal branding.
This includes the following elements:
- Font
- Art type
- A logo (and its variants)
- Any other subtle element that helps you stand out
Take Afrojack as an example:
The Dutch music producer and DJ has a logo that you’ll find on all of his artwork.
Of course, we’re no Afrojacks (at least I’m not). But it can certainly help you carve out an identity for yourself in the long-run.
Once you finalize these branding guidelines, make sure that you stick with them, especially when creating cover art.
4. Use the Right Color Contrast
Great color contrast not only looks good, but also makes your content legible and easy to scan.
Every cover art is different, so there’s not much specific advice to give here. Just mix dark colors with lighter shades, especially if you have some text in there, and you’ll be good.
Here’s an example of a meticulously crafted cover art that mixes a range of shades, while maintaining optimum contrast levels:
Here’s another good example:
5. Keep it Clean
Last but not least, to make your cover art visually pleasing, don’t over-clutter it.
It can be tempting to include all the information and artwork in the world, but remember, the ideal Spotify cover art size is only 640 x 640. There’s not much room to begin with, so make it count.
Keep in mind that this isn’t a hard and fast rule, and you may choose to do the exact opposite.
How to Update Your Spotify Cover Art
Uploading/Changing your Spotify playlist cover art is easy.
Here’s what you need to do on the web player and the desktop app:
- Hover over the existing image/placeholder for your playlist
- Browse to the location on your device where the PNG/JPG file is stored
- Select and upload it
On the Spotify app, follow these steps:
- Tap the dotted menu at the top of the playlist
- Tap on “Edit”
- Select “Change Image”
- Select the file from your gallery
If your file doesn’t follow the recommended Spotify cover art size, it may get pixelated or some parts of it may get cut off.
Ending Note
Your cover art – whether it’s for a playlist, album, or cover – can tell a lot about your taste and provide some context for your content.
Apart from getting the size right, follow the best-practices to make the most out of your cover art.
Best of luck!
