StudioPros

You’ve spent so much time focusing on making music, you may not have even considered an important part of your CD or demo: album art.

But even though most people download MP3s and your CD art tends to be relegated to a tiny square in the bottom corner of iTunes, it’s actually a more important aspect of your demo than you may think.

Setting the Tone

Like it or not, your CD cover sets the tone for the whole experience of listening to your music. The phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover” springs to mind, because most people really do judge things by their cover—your demo CD included. In a lot of ways, the art is the first impression you make on potential fans. So if it’s no good, you could turn off listeners before they even hear your recording! Cool, eye-catching art is the first step to getting music fans interested.

Professional or Amateur?

Besides wanting your artwork to be cool, the single most important thing is that looks professional. You already put so much effort into professionally producing your songs, don’t write off the art as something that you don’t need to put the same level of effort into. This goes hand in hand with the point above about first impressions. If the average music fan’s first impression of your album is that it looks unprofessional, they’ll be way less motivated to listen to the recording because they might assume the music doesn’t sound professional either.

You’ve hired professionals for your mixing, engineering and CD mastering. You may have worked with professional music producers. You probably worked with professional studio musicians, too. If you’re not able to make a CD design that doesn’t look amateurish, consult the professionals there as well. More on that later…

Not Just Album Art

You still may be thinking about my previous comment on art being tiny and looking insignificant in today’s music buying experience, but don’t mistake that for meaning it’s irrelevant. Even if you’ve decided not to make physical CDs at all, there’s still another thing for you to take into consideration: it’s not just album art that we’re talking about here.

Yes, it is the cover of your album. But that’s not the only place where artwork pops up in your music career. You hopefully have a website (and if not, check out our guide to making a killer musician website), which means you’ll have photos and design elements prominently featured for all your fans to see. Most artists like to incorporate the art for their albums into their websites and overall look and feel for the band’s image and merchandise: stickers, T-shirts, press kits, etc.

Art is part of your image, your identity as a musician, so it’s extremely important to make sure it makes sense with your style and conveys the essence of your music. It’s all about establishing your brand.

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Everyone loves being trendy.

The clothes we wear, the slang phrases we say, even the social networks we’re a part of.  Not too long ago, it was very trendy to be on MySpace. Since then, that has completely shifted to Facebook, so much so that many people started thinking it was even a little uncool to still be on MySpace.

I remember as a teenager in the ’90s when baggy pants were the “in” style. And I’m not talking loose, I’m talking really, really baggy. Today, skinny jeans and other generally tight-fitting jeans are the trend.

Music follows trends as well. All sorts of them, in fact. Certain styles of music will blow up in popularity, sometimes for a short period of time, sometimes for a long while. One artist will come along and start the trend, then a whole ton of bands who sound similar get to come along for the ride while the movement booms.

It can be tempting to change your style to fit in with the current trends in an attempt to catch a ride with that wave while it’s rolling. In some ways it’s a great skill to have as an artist if you can adapt. For example, while you want to establish your personal fashion style, you also will look more “in” if you adjust your image to the trends. Some artists even successfully adapt their music as trends come and go. Think about people like David Bowie and Madonna who have enjoyed long, successful careers by constantly changing, becoming musical chameleons.

But that’s really difficult to pull of, which is why so few people have done it. There are also plenty of examples of artists who tried to adjust their style to something that was popular at the time, but it was just painfully obvious that it wasn’t them and nobody took them seriously. Anyone remember when MC Hammer took a stab at gangster rap? That didn’t work out too well for him, because everyone knew it simply wasn’t his style.

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Have you ever been standing in line to get your morning coffee when someone walks in wearing a zipper-laden leather jacket, skin-tight jeans with ripped holes, visible tattoos and a perfectly “messy” hairdo?  Of course, the first thing you think is, “that guy is definitely in a band!” If a scene similar to this has ever played out in your life, you’ve been introduced to the world of image. And like it or not, it’s one of the most important aspects of today’s musicians.

I know what you’re thinking–but my music is most important. It’s the music that’s gonna take me to the top. Don’t get me wrong, your music is definitely important. And if you look like a rock star but sound awful, you may have your priorities a little out of whack. But the fact remains that image is a huge aspect of being in a band, and it’s only the image-conscious artists that stand a fighting chance in today’s cutthroat music industry.

Band image has always been around

Image is by no means a new concept for musicians. Back in the ’60s, the Beatles shocked everyone with their “long” hair (mop tops that are tame by today’s standards), “mods” like The Who were wearing tailor-made suits, and Eric Clapton cared about two things: the blues and fashion. In the ’70s, every musician had a shoulder-length hairdo and Led Zeppelin was making open-shirt fashion statements on stage. The ’80s brought us tight leather pants and so much hairspray the ozone cried for mercy, and the ’90s saw the popularization of flannel shirts tied around the waste and baggy jeans.

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