What is Animated Album Cover Art? And what are they used for?

What is Animated Album Cover Art?

Motion album cover art is animated 8-second clips of the regular cover and can be extended for the song’s length. But they’re usually an infinite loop of the animated version of Cover Art.

“Album Covers are like any other vehicle, they are a means of illustrating a story.“
– Peter Blake

Animated Cover Art is changing the game for artists, musicians, and producers.

Since the days of vinyl records, album covers have not changed much. But the new generation of Album Cover Art has now taken place: Animated Album Covers or Motion Album Covers.

There might have been a time when you looked at a Pink Floyd album cover and saw it move because of something you inhaled or ingested, but these album covers do so without any drugs necessary.

Long before the digital era and the design disciplines that emerged with it, there was a unique canvas, reaching a visual audience of millions; every designer dreamed of working on a vinyl record album cover.

Invented in 1938 by graphic designer Alex Steinweiss while working at Columbia Records as an art director, album cover art quickly became one of the most critical design disciplines in the world. Thanks to Steinweiss’s inventive concept and unique visual language, a new way of representing music was born.

In the following years, cover design became a vital part of music albums, not to mention a strong cultural influence. It was one of the few mediums at the time which reached millions of people. It had a global impact, thus providing designers with a canvas through which they could express their creativity and originality to the world.

It was also considered to be among the most effective marketing tools. Often the album cover was the main thing that persuaded people to purchase an album, rather than the music itself. In many cases, the cover design was, in fact, much better than the music it represented.

What are animated album art used for?

Animated Cover Arts can be used on different platforms, streaming services, and sound plates such as:

• Spotify Canvas 
• Apple Music
• YouTube
• Tidal
• Instagram Reels, Post & Stories

Also, outside the streaming platforms, animated cover art can be a crucial asset for music promotion, such as live visuals and social media.

Spotify Canvas

What is Spotify Canvas?

Canvas lets Artists customize their Album Art with looping videos. Canvas is an 8-second visual loop that shows in a vertical format to fill the screen. It appears in the Now Playing view instead of your album artwork.

The recommended Spotify cover art size is 1600 x 1600 pixels. Furthermore, the ideal aspect ratio is 1:1, making it a perfect square.
The maximum file size limit for your image is 4MB.
You can only upload the image in a handful of file formats, including JPG, PNG, and TIFF.
The cover art should be encoded with sRGB color space at approximately 24 bits per pixel.
Remember that Spotify does not support any cover art with orientation metadata.

Additionally, if you want to add a playlist cover, the recommended Spotify playlist cover size is 300 x 300 pixels with a 1:1 aspect ratio.

Spotify Canvas Guidelines

Your Canvas Animated Cover Art needs to be:
3-8 Seconds long
Vertical 9:16 ratio
Between 720px – 1080px tall
An MP4 or JPG file

How To make the most of your Spotify Canvas:

Choose footage without talking, singing, or rapping. The clips are only 3-8 seconds long, so they won’t sync with the lyrics.
Avoid rapid video cuts or intense flashing graphics. They may overwhelm the viewer.
Phone screen size is essential. The edges may get cut off on some phones.
Consider excluding your song and artist name. It already shows in the Now Playing view in the Spotify app.
Try to tell a whole story. You only have 8 seconds, but trimmed-down music videos and incomplete stories can leave fans expecting more.

Share Your Animated Cover Art from Canvas to Your Instagram Story

Spotify is expanding its canvas feature for artists to Instagram stories. Artists can now share their canvas animated cover art on Instagram Stories.

Apple Music

Apple Music Guidelines

Youtube

If you only want to listen to music on YouTube without random videos popping up in your recommendations, then YouTube Music is for you. YouTube Music is a separate app used for streaming music and has been quite popular in the past couple of years.

Not only does YouTube Music create automatic playlists based on your search history and preferences, but you can also make your own custom playlists. Among other features, YouTube Music lets you customize your music experience by adding and deleting songs from your playlists, changing the name of your playlists, and sorting your music. You can only add album art to YouTube Music by uploading your music. You can choose any album cover you want when you upload a particular song. Other than that, there isn’t an option to add a new cover to albums that have already been uploaded.

Youtube Guidelines:

Instagram

Insta Post / Reels

Instagram Post / Reels Guidelines

Up to 1 Minutes in 1:1 / 16:9 / 9:16 Ratio (1920px tall)

Insta Stories

Instagram Stories Guidelines

Up to 15 Seconds In 16:9 Ratio (1080x1920px)

Share Your Spotify Canvas to Your Instagram Story

Spotify is expanding its Canvas feature for artists to Instagram stories. Spotify Canvas essentially lets Artists customize their Album Art with looping videos. Artists will now be able to share their Spotify Canvas Animated Cover Art on Instagram Stories.