Photo Credit: Clay Banks
Spotify surpassed 500 million users in 2023, making it one of the largest music streaming services on the planet. Part of successfully tapping into that market is album artwork that follows Spotify’s album art cover guidelines.
Spotify album art is displayed in a 1:1 aspect ratio, which means your image needs to be square. The image can be as small as 640 pixels x 640 pixels, but you should aim for the highest resolution possible.
That’s because more people than ever are listening to Spotify using their massive 70”+ TV screens while working from home. Spotify will automatically resize the artwork according to the device the user is listening from—so up to 3,000 pixels x 3,000 pixels is recommended for displaying on 4K-enabled devices.
Which image formats does Spotify album covers support?
Spotify is limited in the image types it supports for cover art on the platform. The image needs to be TIFF, JPG, or PNG and should be encoded with sRGB color space at 24 bits per pixel. Spotify cover art also doesn’t support orientation metadata, so you can leave that info out.
Are there any limitations to imagery that a Spotify album art cover can depict?
Spotify has posted some guidelines for its Spotify for Artists platform that you should follow when designing the album art for your release. Some ‘greatest hits’ to avoid include sexually explicit content, violent content, or any content to which you do not own the copyright. You should also avoid creating cover art that could be deemed offensive or defamatory to a particular person or people.
It’s important to create cover art that is attractive to the eye, but also conveys information about the album. Remember, there are 500 million listeners on Spotify with millions of artists vying for their ears. Eye-catching album art can be the difference between a fan discovering they like your take on a genre or passing you up for someone else’s tunes. We’re a visual-first species, after all.
