To meet the stores guidelines, there are certain requirements for the artwork of each and every release.
Quality and format
1. Quality of images. The cover art must no be any of the following: blurry, pixelated, mismatched, misaligned, rotated, incorrect, stretched, or have other quality issues.
The information shown in the cover image should always match the information of the metadata as accurately as possible. Do not abbreviate your artist name (unless that's how it's written in the Release Information)
2. Dimensions of the cover art. The cover art of all releases must accomplish with all following requirements:
- Proportion: Exactly squared
- Minimum size: 3000 x 3000 px.
- Maximum size: 5000 x 5000 px.
- Accepted formats: JPG, TIFF or PNG
- Mode: RGB (CMYK is not available)
- Maximum size of file: 36 MB
The image must not contain:
1. Links and web pages. The cover art can not contain website addresses, websites that sell music, mentions to social media, logos of any stores or services related to entertainment, mentions to physical formats, video formats or any external reference of the digital release.
2. Telephone or email addresses. The cover art can not contain neither telephone numbers nor email addresses.
3. Credits and collaborations. The cover art can include credits or other artists’ names, who are not the primary artists of the release as long as they are justified in the metadata.
The information in the cover will have to reproduce with extreme precision and without abbreviations the information of the metadata.
4. Tracklisting and illegible texts. The cover art can not contain the track listing.
It is also recommended to use legible fonts in the cover, as the image will be visualized in small formats and it won't be able to appreciate small texts. Texts that are not legible will not be accepted.
5. Descriptions and biographies. The cover art must not include albums descriptions or artists biographies.
6. Digital, physical and video format. The cover art can not include references to it being a digital or physical product (such as “Online”, “CD”, “Compact Disc”, etc.). Mentions to the release format are neither allowed.
Also the cover art must not contain references to contents that are missing in the album, such as “Includes DVD” or “Includes Lyrics”.
Similar expressions like “All Rights Reserved”, “Registered Product”, “Under Copyright”, etc., can not be used. Not even other redundant or unnecessary information.
The release reference number can appear in the cover, but not the UPC or any of the track’s ISRC codes.
7. Pricing. The cover art can not include references to the pricing, or any information with promotional purposes.
8. Pornography and violent contents. The cover art can not include contents that may be racist, pornographic, or glorify or trivialize violence.
9. Offensive symbolism. The cover art must not contain any kind of symbolism that offends a specific group of people or ethnicities, such as Nazi symbolism, restricted by the Strafgesetzbuch section 86a.
10. Misleading information. The cover art must not be misleading. For example, prominently depicting or referencing an artist even though the artist does not perform on the album.
11. Translations and use of special characters. The use of non-occidental or special characters (like Arabic characters, Chinese characters or Greek letters) must be avoided unless they guard an explicit relation with the content.
Side-by-side translations or transliterations of the content are not allowed. The information must be written following the same structure and alphabet as in the metadata.
12. Logos, images and registered brands. All the logos (including the involved texts) must be justified in the metadata. The logos can be related to the artists, producers, labels or other information involved with the musical product.
- Designers, photographers and other mentions to the cover artists are not allowed.
- Registered brands and private or personal images (from people or companies) can not be included in the cover art. The only exceptions are when they are visually irrelevant (being part of the background), they accomplish a relevant role (e.g., in a musical) or are justified in the metadata (for example, as the producer or the publisher).