January 7, 2024 • 22 mins
In Episode 07 of How to Start a Podcast, you'll learn how to create stunning podcast artwork that stands out in Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Next Steps:
- How to Design Stunning Podcast Cover Art (Blog)
- How to Design Podcast Cover Art (Video)
- Pro Graphic Designer REACTS to Podcast Artwork!! (Video)
Artwork Design Tools:
- Pexels (Royalty-Free Images)
- TinyPNG
- Canva
- 99designs
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Alban (00:00):
So many podcasts have images of microphones and
(00:04):
headphones, and the RSS feed perlogo recently attacked, show
them what you are really about.
Don't use up that valuable realestate to remind people. Hey,
you know this is a podcastright?
Gilon (00:20):
Hey guys, Welcome to the How To Start A Podcast podcast.
My name is Gilon.
Alban (00:24):
And I'm Alban and today we are talking about how to
create your podcast artwork.
Gilon (00:28):
Hopefully you haven't done this already. We told you
not to if you've been followingalong, yeah,
Alban (00:32):
episode one, we said don't create your podcast
artwork, because a lot changesbetween Episode One and Episode
Seven where we are here. So wewanted to make sure that you
wait until you locked in forsure. Your title, everything
about your podcast, the style,the niche, the vibe, the
aesthetic. And now that you'vegot it all, you're going to be
(00:52):
able to knock it all out. Bringit all together with some
beautiful podcast artwork.
Gilon (00:58):
Why is podcast artwork important? So glad you asked. So
glad, basically your albumcover, right? This is your
moment you are putting yourselfout into the world. You're
putting your podcast out thereand you need really great
artwork, because it's kind oflike a book cover. Nobody ever
reads maybe someday we'll do. Idon't read books that have like
really drab looking book covers,and I definitely don't really
listen albums.
Alban (01:18):
So I gave a talk at Podcast Movement. And somebody
at one point said like, Willdon't judge a book by its cover.
I was like, All right. So thatphrase came from like, the
1800s. And it was I think don'tjudge a book by its binding. But
it was because all books werebound the same way. And it was
(01:39):
first used when someone saidlike, oh, I read this book
because that beautiful bindingeven though it was like turned
out wildly inappropriate book.
I'm giving a little too muchinfo here. But knickers. Okay,
so the reason why you shouldn'tjudge a book by its cover that
phrase, I agree with thesentiment. But it came from a
time when book covers all lookthe same. There are still things
(02:01):
you can learn from a book cover.
And you can also learn frompodcast artwork, you can tell
that something is professional,you can tell that it's going to
sound good, just by seeing theartwork, it indicates quality.
Gilon (02:15):
It's kind of like that statement, you only get one shot
at a first impression. And yourpodcast cover art is your first
impression. There's really noway to like test out a podcast
without listening to it right.
And so a lot of times peoplewill just scroll through and
look at cover art. And that willbe a yes or no moment for them
like, Well, this looks like somesomebody just threw together.
Maybe they're not quite who Iwant to be listening to, like
people are judging based off ofcovers. Yeah,
Alban (02:39):
I mean, it's the first thing potential listeners are
going to see in Apple podcasts.
So they're going to be scrollingthrough and they're trying to
find a new show in thiscategory, and they see your
podcast, you want to make surethat it looks really good. And
it is going to signify how goodof quality is this podcast, I
put something out to the worldsaid hey, you know how many of
(03:00):
you actually pay attention tothe artwork. 62% of listeners
said, I actually judge podcastbased on the artwork, I'm much
more likely to click on stuffthat I like the artwork. That
makes total sense to me.
Gilon (03:15):
Yeah. And I think in the time of, you know, shopping for
albums, you definitely kind ofwould check out the vibe of the
cover of something to know if itwas an artist or even music that
you would be interested in. Andso podcast cover art is really
no different. So Apple, like inmost things leads the way in
what the requirements are forthe size, style and all of that
(03:36):
of podcast artwork. So what arethose specs
Alban (03:39):
in podcasting, there is the RSS spec. This is the open
standards. And then there's someapple specific stuff. And Apple
16 years ago now startedallowing podcast to come into
iTunes. And they set a lot ofparameters and said, like, Hey,
here's how big artwork shouldbe. Here's what we want to be
like. And then everyone hasfollowed their lead. Apple,
(04:00):
still the largest PodcastDirectory with Apple podcasts.
But everybody else follows us.
So if you follow these Appleguidelines, you're going to be
good and Spotify and Googlepodcasts and Amazon music etc.
Gilon (04:13):
Yeah, so one of the things that Apple requires are
dimensions right, yourdimensions need to be 3000 by
3000 pixels. You can do smalleror larger or mismatch that's not
going to work we need 3000 by3000 perfect square of pixels
for your artwork.
Alban (04:30):
To be clear 2999 by 3000 is not a perfect square that
will not work. This is veryparticular if you use the
Buzzsprout Canva integration.
You won't have to stress thisbecause we will enforce all
these guidelines. But if you'regoing to do this on your own, or
you're going to work withsomebody in Fiverr or somewhere
else, make sure 3000 by 3000 afew other things. Resolution of
(04:53):
72 dots per inch. You want tosave your file as a JPEG or a
ping as PNG or JPG. And the lastthing is you want to end the RGB
color space. So red, blue andgreen pixels are making up these
colors. Those are all prettystandard. But that 3000 by 3000
is the one that really hangs upa lot of podcasters. Because
(05:16):
they're slightly off, or theythink they want a different
shaped image. That's not goingto work. Is there anything else
you run into Jalon, when you'reworking with people in support,
Gilon (05:27):
yeah, so file size.
Another thing, sometimespeople's actual artwork, file
size is too big, it needs to beless than 300 KB, some people
have a 1.5 megabytes, it's toobig. And it's going to actually
hang up your listing and Applepodcasts. And people's podcasts
get taken down because theirfile size of their artwork is
too large, which is kind ofwild. And people are like what's
(05:48):
happening, I was listed what'sgoing on, we check out your file
size to see if that needs to besmaller. Yeah, and
Alban (05:55):
we've looked at this quite a bit. And I don't think
there's a hard and fastrequirement around it. But in
years and years of answeringthese emails, that one comes up.
So compress your images be nicerto the internet, we don't need
to send tons of informationaround the web that doesn't need
to be around, there's a nicewebsite called Tiny ping, tiny
(06:16):
PNG. And once you've finalizedyour artwork, upload it there,
it will compress it. So yourimage looks exactly the same.
But it's going to easily fitunder that 300 kilobyte ratio.
Gilon (06:29):
Yeah. And if you don't know the size, or the pixel
dimension, you can definitelyclick your image and there
should be an option, you canright click on it, and there
should be an option to get info.
And that'll tell you how bigyour file size is, what the
dimensions of the image are, andall that good stuff. So now that
you know kind of what thedimensions are. And those
requirements were some otherdesign tips that we have.
Alban (06:47):
Well, one thing to remember is you want to be
designing for a variety ofsizes, it's easy when you're
designing a 3000 by 3000 pixelsto imagine it's going to be a
really large image. But the waythat Apple podcast displays it,
it might be on an Apple Watch,it might be as a small icon in
Apple podcasts. So you want tolook at something that looks
(07:09):
good when it's really big. Andalso when it's really small. I
think the smallest is like 27 by27 pixels. So we're talking
really tiny. And so pick like areally strong color and maybe
like not a ton, it can't be asuper busy image. Because you
want to make sure that it looksgood. Even when it's smaller,
(07:30):
you want your artwork to clearlycommunicate the subject of your
podcast. So if your podcast isabout mental health, think about
what images represent mentalhealth, maybe type mental health
into Google Images, and justlook to get ideas. Oh, I'm
seeing images of a brain I'mseeing images of calm, relaxing
(07:51):
environment. Those are thethings that you're going to want
to incorporate into your
Gilon (07:55):
artwork. And that makes sense. Because again, you don't
get a second chance at a firstimpression. And so just being
mindful to communicate, not overcommunicate, but to communicate
enough what your podcast isabout using your artwork, it's
really important.
Alban (08:08):
Next tip is limit the number of words in your artwork.
You don't
Gilon (08:12):
want 12,000 words. Why?
Alban (08:15):
But one is that this is going to be a small image at
times people will do this.
They'll say, Hey, this is theHow To Start A Podcast. And then
they'll go well, it's a podcast,they put the word podcast under
it. And then they say with Jalonand Alban hosts, and co host.
And then they write byBuzzsprout, a podcast
host@buzzsprout.com. And it'slike, Oh, my goodness. Now you
(08:37):
look at this, and this is themost cluttered. Crazy, is just a
bunch of words. Limit yourself.
If you're finding you've gotmore than six words, eight
words, maybe max, you need to bethinking about what is the most
critical thing to come across.
In this artwork. Yeah,
Gilon (08:56):
that's really important.
I think you want something thatcommunicates clearly what the
podcast is about. But again,you're not trying to over
communicate or stuff too muchinformation, like they're gonna
know who the hosts are, oncethey click into it, you know, or
right underneath the artwork. Soyou don't necessarily need to
use the real estate on yourcover art for all of that
information. There are otherplaces where they'll find some
of those things out.
Alban (09:16):
One of the things we've run into on YouTube as well.
It's like your artwork or yourthumbnail, that's what catches
someone's eye. They aren't goingto be paying attention to that
once they are listening orwatching the video or listening
to the podcast. So do somethingthis eyecatching is giving the
very basics. And then you get totell them everything else. You
(09:38):
could tell them who you are andyour background and everything
that's interesting about thepodcast. That will come a little
bit later.
Gilon (09:44):
So what is maybe a cover art? No, no, or don't do.
Alban (09:48):
Alright, so let's talk a lot about typography. There's
lots of nose here. So using theactual, you know, font types,
and what are we going to puthere to fonts Max, like we're
not putting any Three, fourfonts, let's try to not crowd
the images with text likeactually give them some space to
breathe, let there be a littlebit of negative space between
(10:11):
elements. Make sure that thistext when we put on there is
actually readable at smallersizes. So put it in there, limit
the amount of words, but thenshrink this down and ask
somebody else to read it. So isthis pretty clear what it says?
And then avoid distractingfonts. So there's a lot of fonts
that I think are just kind oflike playful and funny. If that
(10:34):
is matching the vibe of yourpodcast, that's cool. But often
something like Papyrus, or ComicSans, I don't know this one
called like cowboy or something,I
Gilon (10:44):
think that you know, these off the top of your head
is mind boggling. But go on.
Alban (10:48):
This is what you do. And you read like typography books,
like this is the stuff thatjumps out and just kind of
yells, hey, I designed this inMicrosoft Paint,
Gilon (10:59):
and Microsoft Paint.
Alban (11:01):
So this is what I would recommend avoiding, like, try to
find professional looking fontchoices. And so limit yourself
to some that just look normal,maybe or not distracting. And if
they have a personality, makesure that personality matches
the personality of the brand.
Gilon (11:20):
Now, um, as we're talking about distracting, what about
like explicit language? Imagery?
How do we feel about that?
Alban (11:29):
I personally am not a fan, I can tell you, Apple
appears to be on the same pageas me. So Apple has always been
like pretty family friendly. Andso explicit content in the title
or on the artwork isn't going tofly. Now the exact borders of
where that is. I'm not 100% sureexactly where it is, like you
(11:50):
can't have nudity. But I can'tgive exact on like how close you
can get, you know, I'm not sureexactly which, you know, dirty
words are allowed and which needto be somewhat censored. But one
thing you can do is go andsearch for things. If you're on
the cusp, and you're like, doesthis word have to be edited? If
it's in the title, go search itin Apple podcasts. And you can
(12:13):
actually see, I did have after atalk at Podcast Movement about
artwork, had a woman come up andsay, Hey, I'm trying to
understand if you think thisartwork is good to work for a
plastic surgery company, and theartwork that they had was I
think like a woman stomach. Andshe's like, do you think this is
appropriate? And I said, I'mconfident that's going to be
(12:34):
okay. But you're coming andasking me because you're afraid
it's a little too, like sexualin nature. If you're concerned
about that, then probably thepeople who are looking at it are
also going to think that's whatyour podcast is about. And now
you're attracting the people youdon't want to listen. And you're
actually pushing away yourtarget market. So only
(12:56):
incorporate that kind ofexplicit stuff. If that is the
subject matter of your show.
Gilon (13:03):
Does that make sense?
Yeah, that totally makes sense.
So in the in the vein of images,is there anything that people
should be mindful of avoidingbeyond you know, explicit
things?
Alban (13:12):
Yeah, this is like one of our pet peeves, right. So many
podcasts have images ofmicrophones, and headphones, and
the RSS feed per logo, recentlyattacked. And the reason is to
be like, well, it's a podcast, Iwant people to know it's a
podcast. But this logic doesn'twork anywhere else doesn't make
(13:33):
sense. I was like, made a memeof like, the cover of badboys to
end with like, a DVDs, andcameras across Will Smith's
face. And I was like, so petty.
This would look ridiculous on aDVD. We don't have DVDs with
cameras and the stuff on thecovers. We want to know what's
the movie about not how was itfilmed? Books do not have
(13:56):
pictures of typewriters on thefront sight writers, you know,
that it's actually being writtenout. So your podcast, unless it
is about the music industry, orthe podcasting industry, or some
type of recording, maybe DJ,like, unless it's one of those
areas, you probably should avoidthe headphones and microphones,
(14:18):
people know they're looking fora podcast, show them what you
are really about. Don't use upthat valuable real estate to
remind people hey, you know,this is podcast, right?
Gilon (14:29):
Yeah, that makes total sense. Even though it feels kind
of counterintuitive. It can be anewbie move. So even though we
feel personally attacked, wewill take your advice we've
talked about over use images. Sosome more things to do
consistent branding, and I thinkthis is all a part of your
overall podcast brand, right?
Your cover art is part of yourbrand, just like your theme
music would be part of yourbrand, just like your intro
would be part of your brand. Andso you want to I think I want to
(14:51):
mention this, you know, ifyou've got different fonts, just
they need to be consistent withyour brand. They should probably
be used somewhere else as well.
Well, it shouldn't just be likefive different fonts that you
picked out randomly. That's aweird vibe, what is your
aesthetic? What are we aimingfor here,
Alban (15:06):
every piece of this, we want it pulling the same
direction. So once we have thisbrand, the colors picked should
pull in that direction, theimages use should all indicate
the same thing, the words thatwe picked the music in the
podcast, the tone of voice we'reusing, everything should
(15:27):
indicate the same brand. And thesame tone through all those
things. Because it's tooconfusing. If you're kind of
communicating like, Hey, this istrue crime. But on the cover
art, it doesn't look like it'svery serious. But in the
podcast, it's very serious. Butthe music is like nearing Yeah,
we've got so many differentfeelings. And so it kind of
(15:49):
feels like nothing could just betotal confusion. So try to line
all these things up and say, Arethese consistent with each
other. And then if I have alarger brand, like this is a
podcast for a business, or achurch, or for my own thing that
I've starting, make sure it'sconsistent. So go look at the
biggest brands in the world,Coca Cola, Apple, Nike, the best
(16:11):
branded products in the world,they always include the same
elements. So it's obvious, youcan't miss a pair of Nike shoes,
because you know, it's gonnahave the swoosh, you can't miss
an Apple product, becausethey've got the Big Apple logo
is because they're doing itconsistent brand. And there's
certain things they would do andcertain things they don't do.
(16:32):
And that makes it very easy foryou to identify that it's part
of a brand.
Gilon (16:36):
So getting kind of more on a techie side. What about
resolution? What should we bepaying attention to when it
comes to the resolution of ourimage?
Alban (16:43):
So we have those requirements from really, your
3000 by 3000. So part of that isusing high resolution images
throughout, can't just search onGoogle images and like right
click and grab some grainything. What do you mean, make
sure you're using things thatare one you're allowed to use,
and two that are high enoughquality. So maybe go to
(17:04):
something like pexels.com P E XE els.com, not pixels pixels.
And that's a bunch of freeimages for you to look at. And
you can use any of those.
They're all super high quality.
So we'll leave that in thedescription. And then like we
said earlier, when you weredone, compress that final image
(17:25):
so that it fits under the 300kilobytes for your podcast size.
Yeah, yes, artwork size,
Gilon (17:32):
there it is. So okay, the How to we've talked about what
you need to do. Now we'retalking about how to do what you
need to do. So how to design it,we love Canva, we've integrated
with them. So if you host withBuzzsprout, we have a Buzzsprout
Canva integration that allowsyou to design your own cover
art, and it already falls withinthose specs that we talked
about. So there's that part ofit that's handled for you. One
(17:54):
of
Alban (17:54):
the great things about Canva is they've got hundreds of
1000s of templates. And so youdon't have to be a pro designer
to make something that looksprofessional in Canva. Instead,
you go on there and you say,Hey, where's all the podcast
artwork, and you scroll throughuntil you see something like
that's pretty close to what Iwant. Now let me change the
title, change some of thecolors, edit that background
image, it's easy to tell thatsomething already looks good and
(18:17):
make adjustments. It's verydifficult to start with a blank
canvas, and then turn it intosomething gorgeous later on. If
you're not a designer,
Gilon (18:26):
definitely. And I totally started on Canva. And I don't
even think when I started, theyhad podcast templates, just
really, yeah. So your girl wasout here on her own, designing
her cover art through Canva. Butit helped me for like one to two
years. So it was really helpful.
And I'm not a designer. So wherethere can be so many pieces of
this that are intimidating.
Canva totally made it notintimidating at all and very
(18:48):
helpful.
Alban (18:49):
If you want to have somebody who can help you and
really make somethingprofessional, one of our
recommendations that I love is99 designs. 99 designs is really
cool, because you pay a flatfee, and it's not going to be
cheap, you know, you might bespending four or $500. But
you're saying, Here's my budget.
And I want a bunch of designersto compete to make the best
(19:09):
piece of artwork. And so youwrite up like, here's my ideas.
Here's the theme. Here's thebrand, here's the colors, here's
the fonts, here's my like, gofor it. And then you've got like
an army of designers competingand saying, Here's what we think
looks good. And then you startpicking out the ones that look
(19:31):
good, and you send back someadjustments. And you refine with
a group of people until you pickthe best option out of all of
them. And what's so wonderfulabout this is you may know what
you like but only once you seeit. And if you're that kind of
person. 99 designs is a greatway to find your cover art and
if you use Buzzsprout in ourpartner discount section, we
(19:54):
actually have a promo code soyou get I think a pretty
substantial discount if you endup doing 99 designs. Those are
Gilon (20:03):
some really great resources. And hopefully we've
given you things to think aboutand Travis, what other things
what other resources can peopleget into to help them really
think about what direction theywant to take their cover art in.
Travis (20:14):
So you got to share it a lot of fantastic tips on how to
design podcast cover art foryour new podcast. And so the
resources I want to point you toare going to help you go deeper
on some of the topics that wecovered. And also give you some
really tangible examples thatyou can look at to see what we
consider good podcast artwork,and some things stay away from.
(20:35):
So the first resource isactually a blog that we wrote on
how to design, podcast coverart, it covers all the apple
podcast requirements that wetalked about as far as the
pixels and resolutions and colorspace and those kinds of things
in in that blog post. We alsohave examples of really nicely
designed cover art for a varietyof different topics, and
(20:55):
categories. So if you want to goand get some ideas, then that's
a great place to go that blogpost, we also have a couple of
videos on our YouTube channelthat I think you really liked.
The first one is an overview ofall the design elements you want
to have in mind as you'redesigning your cover art. From
the contrasting colors to thesimplicity to the word count.
Some of the things we talkedabout in the episode just
(21:16):
reiterated, and then a funvideo, if you have some time, we
actually had a professionaldesigner from Canva, react to 10
different pieces of Buzzsproutcover art, these are podcasts
that use Buzzsprout to post andpromote their show. And this
designer comes in and critiquesall 10 of them outlining the
things that she loves the thingsthat should be improved. So you
(21:38):
can see some really tangibleexamples and why these different
design principles are soimportant. So if you want to
read that blog post, and youwant to watch those videos, just
scroll down on your phone alittle bit to the shownotes. And
you'll see links to all of thoseresources. And the other things
we talked about, like tiny PNGand 99 designs and all that
stuff.
Alban (21:55):
Thank you, Travis. So go ahead and check those out. Get
your artwork made. And in thenext episode, we are actually
going to get you set up inBuzzsprout. So we've got your
edited episodes, we've got yourartwork, we've got some of the
information about your podcast.
Now we're gonna bring it alltogether and get set up in your
Buzzsprout account. Till nexttime he podcasting Theo
So many podcasts have images of microphones and
(00:04):
headphones, and the RSS feed perlogo recently attacked, show
them what you are really about.
Don't use up that valuable realestate to remind people. Hey,
you know this is a podcastright?
Gilon (00:20):
Hey guys, Welcome to the How To Start A Podcast podcast.
My name is Gilon.
Alban (00:24):
And I'm Alban and today we are talking about how to
create your podcast artwork.
Gilon (00:28):
Hopefully you haven't done this already. We told you
not to if you've been followingalong, yeah,
Alban (00:32):
episode one, we said don't create your podcast
artwork, because a lot changesbetween Episode One and Episode
Seven where we are here. So wewanted to make sure that you
wait until you locked in forsure. Your title, everything
about your podcast, the style,the niche, the vibe, the
aesthetic. And now that you'vegot it all, you're going to be
(00:52):
able to knock it all out. Bringit all together with some
beautiful podcast artwork.
Gilon (00:58):
Why is podcast artwork important? So glad you asked. So
glad, basically your albumcover, right? This is your
moment you are putting yourselfout into the world. You're
putting your podcast out thereand you need really great
artwork, because it's kind oflike a book cover. Nobody ever
reads maybe someday we'll do. Idon't read books that have like
really drab looking book covers,and I definitely don't really
listen albums.
Alban (01:18):
So I gave a talk at Podcast Movement. And somebody
at one point said like, Willdon't judge a book by its cover.
I was like, All right. So thatphrase came from like, the
1800s. And it was I think don'tjudge a book by its binding. But
it was because all books werebound the same way. And it was
(01:39):
first used when someone saidlike, oh, I read this book
because that beautiful bindingeven though it was like turned
out wildly inappropriate book.
I'm giving a little too muchinfo here. But knickers. Okay,
so the reason why you shouldn'tjudge a book by its cover that
phrase, I agree with thesentiment. But it came from a
time when book covers all lookthe same. There are still things
(02:01):
you can learn from a book cover.
And you can also learn frompodcast artwork, you can tell
that something is professional,you can tell that it's going to
sound good, just by seeing theartwork, it indicates quality.
Gilon (02:15):
It's kind of like that statement, you only get one shot
at a first impression. And yourpodcast cover art is your first
impression. There's really noway to like test out a podcast
without listening to it right.
And so a lot of times peoplewill just scroll through and
look at cover art. And that willbe a yes or no moment for them
like, Well, this looks like somesomebody just threw together.
Maybe they're not quite who Iwant to be listening to, like
people are judging based off ofcovers. Yeah,
Alban (02:39):
I mean, it's the first thing potential listeners are
going to see in Apple podcasts.
So they're going to be scrollingthrough and they're trying to
find a new show in thiscategory, and they see your
podcast, you want to make surethat it looks really good. And
it is going to signify how goodof quality is this podcast, I
put something out to the worldsaid hey, you know how many of
(03:00):
you actually pay attention tothe artwork. 62% of listeners
said, I actually judge podcastbased on the artwork, I'm much
more likely to click on stuffthat I like the artwork. That
makes total sense to me.
Gilon (03:15):
Yeah. And I think in the time of, you know, shopping for
albums, you definitely kind ofwould check out the vibe of the
cover of something to know if itwas an artist or even music that
you would be interested in. Andso podcast cover art is really
no different. So Apple, like inmost things leads the way in
what the requirements are forthe size, style and all of that
(03:36):
of podcast artwork. So what arethose specs
Alban (03:39):
in podcasting, there is the RSS spec. This is the open
standards. And then there's someapple specific stuff. And Apple
16 years ago now startedallowing podcast to come into
iTunes. And they set a lot ofparameters and said, like, Hey,
here's how big artwork shouldbe. Here's what we want to be
like. And then everyone hasfollowed their lead. Apple,
(04:00):
still the largest PodcastDirectory with Apple podcasts.
But everybody else follows us.
So if you follow these Appleguidelines, you're going to be
good and Spotify and Googlepodcasts and Amazon music etc.
Gilon (04:13):
Yeah, so one of the things that Apple requires are
dimensions right, yourdimensions need to be 3000 by
3000 pixels. You can do smalleror larger or mismatch that's not
going to work we need 3000 by3000 perfect square of pixels
for your artwork.
Alban (04:30):
To be clear 2999 by 3000 is not a perfect square that
will not work. This is veryparticular if you use the
Buzzsprout Canva integration.
You won't have to stress thisbecause we will enforce all
these guidelines. But if you'regoing to do this on your own, or
you're going to work withsomebody in Fiverr or somewhere
else, make sure 3000 by 3000 afew other things. Resolution of
(04:53):
72 dots per inch. You want tosave your file as a JPEG or a
ping as PNG or JPG. And the lastthing is you want to end the RGB
color space. So red, blue andgreen pixels are making up these
colors. Those are all prettystandard. But that 3000 by 3000
is the one that really hangs upa lot of podcasters. Because
(05:16):
they're slightly off, or theythink they want a different
shaped image. That's not goingto work. Is there anything else
you run into Jalon, when you'reworking with people in support,
Gilon (05:27):
yeah, so file size.
Another thing, sometimespeople's actual artwork, file
size is too big, it needs to beless than 300 KB, some people
have a 1.5 megabytes, it's toobig. And it's going to actually
hang up your listing and Applepodcasts. And people's podcasts
get taken down because theirfile size of their artwork is
too large, which is kind ofwild. And people are like what's
(05:48):
happening, I was listed what'sgoing on, we check out your file
size to see if that needs to besmaller. Yeah, and
Alban (05:55):
we've looked at this quite a bit. And I don't think
there's a hard and fastrequirement around it. But in
years and years of answeringthese emails, that one comes up.
So compress your images be nicerto the internet, we don't need
to send tons of informationaround the web that doesn't need
to be around, there's a nicewebsite called Tiny ping, tiny
(06:16):
PNG. And once you've finalizedyour artwork, upload it there,
it will compress it. So yourimage looks exactly the same.
But it's going to easily fitunder that 300 kilobyte ratio.
Gilon (06:29):
Yeah. And if you don't know the size, or the pixel
dimension, you can definitelyclick your image and there
should be an option, you canright click on it, and there
should be an option to get info.
And that'll tell you how bigyour file size is, what the
dimensions of the image are, andall that good stuff. So now that
you know kind of what thedimensions are. And those
requirements were some otherdesign tips that we have.
Alban (06:47):
Well, one thing to remember is you want to be
designing for a variety ofsizes, it's easy when you're
designing a 3000 by 3000 pixelsto imagine it's going to be a
really large image. But the waythat Apple podcast displays it,
it might be on an Apple Watch,it might be as a small icon in
Apple podcasts. So you want tolook at something that looks
(07:09):
good when it's really big. Andalso when it's really small. I
think the smallest is like 27 by27 pixels. So we're talking
really tiny. And so pick like areally strong color and maybe
like not a ton, it can't be asuper busy image. Because you
want to make sure that it looksgood. Even when it's smaller,
(07:30):
you want your artwork to clearlycommunicate the subject of your
podcast. So if your podcast isabout mental health, think about
what images represent mentalhealth, maybe type mental health
into Google Images, and justlook to get ideas. Oh, I'm
seeing images of a brain I'mseeing images of calm, relaxing
(07:51):
environment. Those are thethings that you're going to want
to incorporate into your
Gilon (07:55):
artwork. And that makes sense. Because again, you don't
get a second chance at a firstimpression. And so just being
mindful to communicate, not overcommunicate, but to communicate
enough what your podcast isabout using your artwork, it's
really important.
Alban (08:08):
Next tip is limit the number of words in your artwork.
You don't
Gilon (08:12):
want 12,000 words. Why?
Alban (08:15):
But one is that this is going to be a small image at
times people will do this.
They'll say, Hey, this is theHow To Start A Podcast. And then
they'll go well, it's a podcast,they put the word podcast under
it. And then they say with Jalonand Alban hosts, and co host.
And then they write byBuzzsprout, a podcast
host@buzzsprout.com. And it'slike, Oh, my goodness. Now you
(08:37):
look at this, and this is themost cluttered. Crazy, is just a
bunch of words. Limit yourself.
If you're finding you've gotmore than six words, eight
words, maybe max, you need to bethinking about what is the most
critical thing to come across.
In this artwork. Yeah,
Gilon (08:56):
that's really important.
I think you want something thatcommunicates clearly what the
podcast is about. But again,you're not trying to over
communicate or stuff too muchinformation, like they're gonna
know who the hosts are, oncethey click into it, you know, or
right underneath the artwork. Soyou don't necessarily need to
use the real estate on yourcover art for all of that
information. There are otherplaces where they'll find some
of those things out.
Alban (09:16):
One of the things we've run into on YouTube as well.
It's like your artwork or yourthumbnail, that's what catches
someone's eye. They aren't goingto be paying attention to that
once they are listening orwatching the video or listening
to the podcast. So do somethingthis eyecatching is giving the
very basics. And then you get totell them everything else. You
(09:38):
could tell them who you are andyour background and everything
that's interesting about thepodcast. That will come a little
bit later.
Gilon (09:44):
So what is maybe a cover art? No, no, or don't do.
Alban (09:48):
Alright, so let's talk a lot about typography. There's
lots of nose here. So using theactual, you know, font types,
and what are we going to puthere to fonts Max, like we're
not putting any Three, fourfonts, let's try to not crowd
the images with text likeactually give them some space to
breathe, let there be a littlebit of negative space between
(10:11):
elements. Make sure that thistext when we put on there is
actually readable at smallersizes. So put it in there, limit
the amount of words, but thenshrink this down and ask
somebody else to read it. So isthis pretty clear what it says?
And then avoid distractingfonts. So there's a lot of fonts
that I think are just kind oflike playful and funny. If that
(10:34):
is matching the vibe of yourpodcast, that's cool. But often
something like Papyrus, or ComicSans, I don't know this one
called like cowboy or something,I
Gilon (10:44):
think that you know, these off the top of your head
is mind boggling. But go on.
Alban (10:48):
This is what you do. And you read like typography books,
like this is the stuff thatjumps out and just kind of
yells, hey, I designed this inMicrosoft Paint,
Gilon (10:59):
and Microsoft Paint.
Alban (11:01):
So this is what I would recommend avoiding, like, try to
find professional looking fontchoices. And so limit yourself
to some that just look normal,maybe or not distracting. And if
they have a personality, makesure that personality matches
the personality of the brand.
Gilon (11:20):
Now, um, as we're talking about distracting, what about
like explicit language? Imagery?
How do we feel about that?
Alban (11:29):
I personally am not a fan, I can tell you, Apple
appears to be on the same pageas me. So Apple has always been
like pretty family friendly. Andso explicit content in the title
or on the artwork isn't going tofly. Now the exact borders of
where that is. I'm not 100% sureexactly where it is, like you
(11:50):
can't have nudity. But I can'tgive exact on like how close you
can get, you know, I'm not sureexactly which, you know, dirty
words are allowed and which needto be somewhat censored. But one
thing you can do is go andsearch for things. If you're on
the cusp, and you're like, doesthis word have to be edited? If
it's in the title, go search itin Apple podcasts. And you can
(12:13):
actually see, I did have after atalk at Podcast Movement about
artwork, had a woman come up andsay, Hey, I'm trying to
understand if you think thisartwork is good to work for a
plastic surgery company, and theartwork that they had was I
think like a woman stomach. Andshe's like, do you think this is
appropriate? And I said, I'mconfident that's going to be
(12:34):
okay. But you're coming andasking me because you're afraid
it's a little too, like sexualin nature. If you're concerned
about that, then probably thepeople who are looking at it are
also going to think that's whatyour podcast is about. And now
you're attracting the people youdon't want to listen. And you're
actually pushing away yourtarget market. So only
(12:56):
incorporate that kind ofexplicit stuff. If that is the
subject matter of your show.
Gilon (13:03):
Does that make sense?
Yeah, that totally makes sense.
So in the in the vein of images,is there anything that people
should be mindful of avoidingbeyond you know, explicit
things?
Alban (13:12):
Yeah, this is like one of our pet peeves, right. So many
podcasts have images ofmicrophones, and headphones, and
the RSS feed per logo, recentlyattacked. And the reason is to
be like, well, it's a podcast, Iwant people to know it's a
podcast. But this logic doesn'twork anywhere else doesn't make
(13:33):
sense. I was like, made a memeof like, the cover of badboys to
end with like, a DVDs, andcameras across Will Smith's
face. And I was like, so petty.
This would look ridiculous on aDVD. We don't have DVDs with
cameras and the stuff on thecovers. We want to know what's
the movie about not how was itfilmed? Books do not have
(13:56):
pictures of typewriters on thefront sight writers, you know,
that it's actually being writtenout. So your podcast, unless it
is about the music industry, orthe podcasting industry, or some
type of recording, maybe DJ,like, unless it's one of those
areas, you probably should avoidthe headphones and microphones,
(14:18):
people know they're looking fora podcast, show them what you
are really about. Don't use upthat valuable real estate to
remind people hey, you know,this is podcast, right?
Gilon (14:29):
Yeah, that makes total sense. Even though it feels kind
of counterintuitive. It can be anewbie move. So even though we
feel personally attacked, wewill take your advice we've
talked about over use images. Sosome more things to do
consistent branding, and I thinkthis is all a part of your
overall podcast brand, right?
Your cover art is part of yourbrand, just like your theme
music would be part of yourbrand, just like your intro
would be part of your brand. Andso you want to I think I want to
(14:51):
mention this, you know, ifyou've got different fonts, just
they need to be consistent withyour brand. They should probably
be used somewhere else as well.
Well, it shouldn't just be likefive different fonts that you
picked out randomly. That's aweird vibe, what is your
aesthetic? What are we aimingfor here,
Alban (15:06):
every piece of this, we want it pulling the same
direction. So once we have thisbrand, the colors picked should
pull in that direction, theimages use should all indicate
the same thing, the words thatwe picked the music in the
podcast, the tone of voice we'reusing, everything should
(15:27):
indicate the same brand. And thesame tone through all those
things. Because it's tooconfusing. If you're kind of
communicating like, Hey, this istrue crime. But on the cover
art, it doesn't look like it'svery serious. But in the
podcast, it's very serious. Butthe music is like nearing Yeah,
we've got so many differentfeelings. And so it kind of
(15:49):
feels like nothing could just betotal confusion. So try to line
all these things up and say, Arethese consistent with each
other. And then if I have alarger brand, like this is a
podcast for a business, or achurch, or for my own thing that
I've starting, make sure it'sconsistent. So go look at the
biggest brands in the world,Coca Cola, Apple, Nike, the best
(16:11):
branded products in the world,they always include the same
elements. So it's obvious, youcan't miss a pair of Nike shoes,
because you know, it's gonnahave the swoosh, you can't miss
an Apple product, becausethey've got the Big Apple logo
is because they're doing itconsistent brand. And there's
certain things they would do andcertain things they don't do.
(16:32):
And that makes it very easy foryou to identify that it's part
of a brand.
Gilon (16:36):
So getting kind of more on a techie side. What about
resolution? What should we bepaying attention to when it
comes to the resolution of ourimage?
Alban (16:43):
So we have those requirements from really, your
3000 by 3000. So part of that isusing high resolution images
throughout, can't just search onGoogle images and like right
click and grab some grainything. What do you mean, make
sure you're using things thatare one you're allowed to use,
and two that are high enoughquality. So maybe go to
(17:04):
something like pexels.com P E XE els.com, not pixels pixels.
And that's a bunch of freeimages for you to look at. And
you can use any of those.
They're all super high quality.
So we'll leave that in thedescription. And then like we
said earlier, when you weredone, compress that final image
(17:25):
so that it fits under the 300kilobytes for your podcast size.
Yeah, yes, artwork size,
Gilon (17:32):
there it is. So okay, the How to we've talked about what
you need to do. Now we'retalking about how to do what you
need to do. So how to design it,we love Canva, we've integrated
with them. So if you host withBuzzsprout, we have a Buzzsprout
Canva integration that allowsyou to design your own cover
art, and it already falls withinthose specs that we talked
about. So there's that part ofit that's handled for you. One
(17:54):
of
Alban (17:54):
the great things about Canva is they've got hundreds of
1000s of templates. And so youdon't have to be a pro designer
to make something that looksprofessional in Canva. Instead,
you go on there and you say,Hey, where's all the podcast
artwork, and you scroll throughuntil you see something like
that's pretty close to what Iwant. Now let me change the
title, change some of thecolors, edit that background
image, it's easy to tell thatsomething already looks good and
(18:17):
make adjustments. It's verydifficult to start with a blank
canvas, and then turn it intosomething gorgeous later on. If
you're not a designer,
Gilon (18:26):
definitely. And I totally started on Canva. And I don't
even think when I started, theyhad podcast templates, just
really, yeah. So your girl wasout here on her own, designing
her cover art through Canva. Butit helped me for like one to two
years. So it was really helpful.
And I'm not a designer. So wherethere can be so many pieces of
this that are intimidating.
Canva totally made it notintimidating at all and very
(18:48):
helpful.
Alban (18:49):
If you want to have somebody who can help you and
really make somethingprofessional, one of our
recommendations that I love is99 designs. 99 designs is really
cool, because you pay a flatfee, and it's not going to be
cheap, you know, you might bespending four or $500. But
you're saying, Here's my budget.
And I want a bunch of designersto compete to make the best
(19:09):
piece of artwork. And so youwrite up like, here's my ideas.
Here's the theme. Here's thebrand, here's the colors, here's
the fonts, here's my like, gofor it. And then you've got like
an army of designers competingand saying, Here's what we think
looks good. And then you startpicking out the ones that look
(19:31):
good, and you send back someadjustments. And you refine with
a group of people until you pickthe best option out of all of
them. And what's so wonderfulabout this is you may know what
you like but only once you seeit. And if you're that kind of
person. 99 designs is a greatway to find your cover art and
if you use Buzzsprout in ourpartner discount section, we
(19:54):
actually have a promo code soyou get I think a pretty
substantial discount if you endup doing 99 designs. Those are
Gilon (20:03):
some really great resources. And hopefully we've
given you things to think aboutand Travis, what other things
what other resources can peopleget into to help them really
think about what direction theywant to take their cover art in.
Travis (20:14):
So you got to share it a lot of fantastic tips on how to
design podcast cover art foryour new podcast. And so the
resources I want to point you toare going to help you go deeper
on some of the topics that wecovered. And also give you some
really tangible examples thatyou can look at to see what we
consider good podcast artwork,and some things stay away from.
(20:35):
So the first resource isactually a blog that we wrote on
how to design, podcast coverart, it covers all the apple
podcast requirements that wetalked about as far as the
pixels and resolutions and colorspace and those kinds of things
in in that blog post. We alsohave examples of really nicely
designed cover art for a varietyof different topics, and
(20:55):
categories. So if you want to goand get some ideas, then that's
a great place to go that blogpost, we also have a couple of
videos on our YouTube channelthat I think you really liked.
The first one is an overview ofall the design elements you want
to have in mind as you'redesigning your cover art. From
the contrasting colors to thesimplicity to the word count.
Some of the things we talkedabout in the episode just
(21:16):
reiterated, and then a funvideo, if you have some time, we
actually had a professionaldesigner from Canva, react to 10
different pieces of Buzzsproutcover art, these are podcasts
that use Buzzsprout to post andpromote their show. And this
designer comes in and critiquesall 10 of them outlining the
things that she loves the thingsthat should be improved. So you
(21:38):
can see some really tangibleexamples and why these different
design principles are soimportant. So if you want to
read that blog post, and youwant to watch those videos, just
scroll down on your phone alittle bit to the shownotes. And
you'll see links to all of thoseresources. And the other things
we talked about, like tiny PNGand 99 designs and all that
stuff.
Alban (21:55):
Thank you, Travis. So go ahead and check those out. Get
your artwork made. And in thenext episode, we are actually
going to get you set up inBuzzsprout. So we've got your
edited episodes, we've got yourartwork, we've got some of the
information about your podcast.
Now we're gonna bring it alltogether and get set up in your
Buzzsprout account. Till nexttime he podcasting Theo
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