On this episode I talk about how to create good cover art for your podcast.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to podcast answers. That's right. We are kicking off episode three,

and we're going to be talking a little bit about show, cover, art, how to make it, what

the specs should be, why you even need it. But first, if you've never joined us before,

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our episodes live. We do a live recording and also live, live YouTube, because a lot

of the stuff we do is going to be hands on and your stuff you need to see. So today's

episode, not so much, but other episodes are things that you need to be watching. So without

further ado, show cover art. What is it? So essentially, it's the branding of your podcast.

It's the way that people know your podcast from another podcast. I mean, obviously you

have the name, the name of the podcast, but the show cover art is just kind of a think

of it like an album art for your favorite, your favorite thing that you, your music artist

that you listen into watch to like, how do you know which album you're listening to?

Because it's got that cool graphic on it, right? So the same thing happens with podcasting.

You need to have a cover art for your show. That way you can, people can know what your

show is and what it's about. So there's some, some specifics for that. It needs to be a

specific size and that size at minimum is 1400 pixels by 1400 pixels. It's going to

be square, but at the maximum, it's going to be 3000 pixels by 3000 pixels. And the reason

that that kind of varies is cause originally it was, you know, 1400 by 1400, but that's

when people were just using their iPods and the screen displays weren't very big on it,

but things are getting bigger and bigger. And now people are watching on their Apple TV on

the Roku TV on YouTube. So it needs to be a lot bigger now because of that. So I would

recommend using the 3000 by 3000 pixel size because that way it allows you to, it allows

people to actually see it in very high resolution when they, when they come in and are looking

at your show. Now the file format needs to be a PNG or a JPEG. I would recommend, especially

if you're going to go ahead and use the 3000 by 3000, I would recommend using the JPEG

format just because it's smaller than the PNG format. And so that way it loads quicker

on the different apps and the different locations. So if you're using the very big file size,

go ahead and make sure that you're using the, the JPEG format. Now, here are some design

things you go, you can make it however you want to, but I would say keep it simple and

make it legible. So if you're going to put any text on it, which I, I recommend that

you do make it legible. Don't try to stuff it with lots of text and don't make that text

small because your phone is going to describe, are going to show that at a very, very, very

small, very small size. And so you don't want to have that being really super tiny because

people won't be able to read it. So that being said, also, I wouldn't put anything on the

bottom fifth of your image as it may become obscured by other elements of the, you know,

the player, depending how, what player you're listening to it in and watching and some of

your player elements may be on that lower fifth of the icon of this, the screen. And

so you're going to end up having it obscured by that. So don't put anything in the lower,

any text anyways, or anything important on the bottom fifth part of your image. It should

also be visually appealing and give people a good idea what to expect. I mean, if your

podcast is going to be about pizza, I would not put an icon of ice cream on your show

because that's just not going to cut it. It's not going to make it, it's not going to work.

It's not going to, it's, it's good. People are going to go, what is this show about?

Is it about ice cream? Is it about pizza? Keep it relatively about what your show is

about. That way people can look at it really quickly and say, you know, this is something

that I want to listen to and I want to watch. You know, so for us podcast answers, ours

is just a little round circle with a headphone on it and a little audio wave. And that way

it kind of gives an idea of it's about podcasting and it says really big bold letters, podcast

answers that way people can see it and they know what they're getting into when they actually

do their show. So one of the other things that I would say too is when you're done designing

your logo, shrink it down real small and see what it looks like. See if it's still legible.

There's a website that's actually really good called onlypod.com, O-N-L-Y, pod-p-o-d.com,

slash podcast-cover-preview and I'll link to this in our show notes. But what you can

do in there is load up your image and it'll scale it to different sizes and show you what

it's going to look like in the different apps. And so that way you can take it and you can

see, okay, this is going to work, you know, in this app, it's going to work in all of

the apps that are pretty popular. So that's a good way to do that. Again, onlypod.com slash

podcast-cover-preview will allow you to kind of see what your show art looks like at the

different sizes. So that way when you design it, you're not going to have it where people

can't read it. So the last thing that I would say too about the show cover art is unless

you're famous, don't put your face on the cover art. I've seen lots of people do this

and for the everyday podcaster who's not a big person like Joe Rogan or, you know, whoever

else, people aren't going to know who you are when your face is on the cover art. They're

going to say, okay, who is this Andy guy? Who's the picture of this person on the cover?

Like it doesn't really tell me anything about your podcast because you're not famous. Your

face isn't recognizable from thousands of people. And so you're, they're not going to

be able to know that this is, I mean, they're not going to care who Andy layman is. They're

going to care what your show is about. So you're going to want to put something that's

more relatable to your show rather than your face unless you know you're famous, but that's

a whole other story. Now there's another thing. So that was your show art, your show cover

art. That's going to be what in all of your listings, your main, like when you search

for your podcast, it's going to show up and it's going to be right there. And that's what

you're going to see in that location. That's what you're going to see when you search for

your show. You can also have episode cover art and that can be unique. Episode art is

unique and it helps people know what each episode is about. So it's going to, you're

going to want to make it unique for every episode. So for one of my podcasts, I ended

up putting a picture of the guest. If we had a guest on there. So again, this is, they

may not recognize that guest, but when they're listening, they can put a name to a face and

go, Oh, this is that the guest. This is who I'm listening to. So I would put a guest picture

on there. If it's something like this where I don't normally, you know, at this point,

we don't have a lot of guests on podcast answers. I would say you can, you know, put it like

if I'm talking about cover art, I may put like a art palette or, you know, something

just a little bit different to designate what this episode is about.

Episode art, usually if you do not have it, so if you decide not to choose it for any

episodes or even, you know, you don't put it for a specific episode, the podcast player

will default back to the cover art of the show. So it'll show your actual show logo.

And if you have the cover art, then for the episode, it's going to show that episode.

One of the ways that you can, you can design cover art, because, you know, not everyone

has, has good design skills, but there are lots of different places out there that you

can go to and, you know, hire somebody for fairly, you know, a reasonable price to create

your, your art, but you just kind of want to make sure that they're going to give them

the dimensions that you want and you're going to want to give them, you know, what file size

type you need and things like that. But another thing you can do is use Canva. Canva is great.

They have a free tier and I use this for a lot of the design work that I do for podcasts,

but it's great because you can even type in podcast cover art and it's going to have

the right dimensions and it's going to have some, you know, there are going to be templates

that you can use, you can customize them, you can start your own type of thing, you can

go fresh from, from everything else, but that's one of those things that I find as an inspiration.

You can even use it as an inspiration, you know, from Canva. And so I would, that's one

of the first places that I would go to look for podcast cover art because they do a great

job and they have lots of templates that you can use that aren't going to, that aren't

going to cost you anything if much. You know, sometimes Canva, if you're not paying for

it has a, a, you know, you have to pay for certain elements in it unless you are a premium

member, premium member, but that's a good place to go to start for this. If you need

to need help with your podcast, I am available for custom consulting. Just go to podcast

answers.com slash contact and I, we can set up an appointment and I can create cover art

for you. You know, I'm a fairly reasonable price cover art designer, I think. And then

I, you know, I can also help you start your podcast, help you grow your podcast. We, we

really appreciate that. Again, I'm available for custom, custom podcast work as well. Guys,

if you enjoyed this episode, I would just encourage you to head over to podcastanswers.com

slash buy me a coffee. If you want to help support the show, help us to be able to buy

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some, you know, getting new, new hardware to test out new services that we can, we can

test out for you. So guys, with that, this episode, that's going to be a wrap on this

episode. Thanks again. Tune in next week. We are going to be actually having an episode

with Sam Sethi. Sam Sethi is the creator of a new app, a new website actually for playing