So, I’ve been there.\u00a0 Plainly some other people have been there too.\u00a0 You work hard on some music. It sounds good. We’re ready to share it with the world.<\/p>\n
We upload the file to our favorite service.\u00a0 Soundcloud.\u00a0 Bandcamp.\u00a0 Anywhere else.\u00a0 And it asks for art.<\/p>\n
Good news. We’re not screwed. <\/p>\n
Obligatory, none of this is exactly legal advice.\u00a0 Always look to study applicable laws and ensure that you’re doing things properly.\u00a0 I hope this is some sound advice and a good place to start.<\/p>\n
This is a direct response to seeing a musician “take” his album art from films, fan art, and even someone else’s album cover.\u00a0 \u00a0Don’t do that.\u00a0 \u00a0Make some art of your own.<\/p>\n
Unsplash<\/a> has a lot of freely available high resolution photographs.\u00a0 Type in a theme, object, or any word that comes to mind.\u00a0 There’s likely something you can use.\u00a0 And according to the license<\/a> as of this writing on February 5, 2018:<\/p>\n All photos published on Unsplash can be used for free. You can use them for commercial and noncommercial purposes. You do not need to ask permission from or provide credit to the photographer or Unsplash, although it is appreciated when possible.<\/p>\n More precisely, Unsplash grants you an irrevocable, nonexclusive copyright license to download, copy, modify, distribute, perform, and use photos from Unsplash for free, including for commercial purposes, without permission from or attributing the photographer or Unsplash. This license does not include the right to compile photos from Unsplash to replicate a similar or competing service.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n You can’t beat free.<\/p>\n OpenClipArt specializes in vector graphics.\u00a0 These aren’t as immediately beautiful as a photograph.\u00a0 They can be scaled as large as you want without losing the clarity of their shape.\u00a0 This is a less immediately attractive option, but might just help if you need a specific shape or symbol.<\/p>\n Plan a photograph.\u00a0 Light it properly.\u00a0 Adjust the settings on your phone.\u00a0 You can take some nice photographs.\u00a0 Just don’t photograph a McDonald’s and act like there’s no copyright issues.\u00a0 Look for generic items,\u00a0 and scenes.\u00a0 Avoid photographing anyone’s face without their consent.\u00a0 \u00a0Use your brain.<\/p>\n Even if your phone takes lower resolution photos than you would like, consider how you can still use those photographs.<\/p>\n Make a collage of photos.<\/p>\n Put a plainly colored frame around a smaller photo.\u00a0 \u00a0Put your band name and album title in the frame to fill the space out.\u00a0 Or put them in the smaller photo to contrast the negative space.<\/p>\n Gimp<\/a> is the old standby of inexpensive graphic design.\u00a0 Open source.\u00a0 Freely available.\u00a0 How good can it be?\u00a0 People are still updating and modernizing it after over 20 years.\u00a0 They’ve made a good piece of software.<\/p>\n Here you can crop any existing image to the square shape required by most music services.\u00a0 Add your band name \/ logo \/ album title.\u00a0 Add more photographs.\u00a0 It’s a powerful piece of software.<\/p>\n I hope we can trust that Google Fonts<\/a>\u00a0has properly researched the license on their freely available typefaces.\u00a0 \u00a0Find something interesting and free\u00a0 here.\u00a0 Do not use Arial, Helvitica, Times New Roman, Comic Sans, or Papyrus.\u00a0 Just don’t.\u00a0 Entertain us.\u00a0 You are an entertainer, correct?<\/p>\nOpenClipArt<\/h3>\n
Your Smartphone<\/h3>\n
Gimp<\/h3>\n
Google Fonts<\/h3>\n