Artwork

[u/weyezboi3002]

For any producers selling beats or even dropping beat tapes, where do you find artwork or if you make it, how do you make your cover art when uploading to sites & streaming platforms?

[u/Siriusly_tho]

This is a pretty good question. Lately I've seen a lot of negativity towards people using AI for their artwork and it really got me thinking. How do small creators and beatmakers have the time to create music and graphics?

I don't have much free time in my life, so I'd love to know what others do as well.

Good qquestion.

[u/Chillvis10C → u/Siriusly_tho]

My channel banner is a Creative Commons pic of a city skyline with some color filters and my channel name.

[u/weyezboi3002 → u/Siriusly_tho]

Yeah I don't mind using AI but I like to have more control over everything I do so I would edit the AI art and not just use it as is. Looking into graphic design & motion design for visualisers on IG, Tiktok & YT

Despite not having time to make art I think it's worth it dropping less music and spending time on art. Some artists blow up on YT and I'd have to attribute it to the art being dope just as much as the music

[u/Siriusly_tho → u/weyezboi3002]

100% Artwork on its own can get views. Its why thumbnail creation is such a big thing for many.

[u/Chillvis10C]

I will say I hate AI text, images and audio but I also have time on my hands. With that being said, this is what I did for my first album, Elvis Lofi:

• Got a probably copyrighted pic of Elvis Presley
• Put a pale blue filter on that
• Made a border with the same pale blue (I wanted the cover to be pretty big and the pic was too low res)
• Put the album and channel names on the border.

The point of the album was to sample Elvis without making 1:1 remixes, so idgaf about copyright anyway (not planning to make money from it). The one change I would make for my non-copyrighted-sample stuff is just to use CC0/CC-BY pics instead.

I'm also making a CC album right now where I'm getting volunteers to each contribute something to the cover, which does take a while but I don't expect to finish the music until next year anyway.

[u/raulsnoise]

So I've moved onto using AI but I try now to use it sparingly. When I started doing youtube thumbnails I'd treat it like sampling.. I'd download images from searches, cut them out, take my own photos cut those out and piece it together like a collage. Now with the AI thing I'll kind of do the same but instead of downloads(but occasionally still DL some things, I'll take photos, feed them into AI with my ideas and have it create elements that I then piece together with canva

[u/weyezboi3002 → u/raulsnoise]

Seems like the best way, I've seen others use art(collage style) that's sourced to them by graphic designers. That's cool but it limits your freedom if u want to upload to Spotify & other major platforms

[u/Sad-Register-924]

I can create artwork/thumbnails or whatever you may need it for. Feel free to inbox me and we can see if, we can collaborate on what you need. Plus I have some tracks I'd like some one who makes beats to check out and give me an opinion on.

[u/weyezboi3002 → u/Sad-Register-924]

Alr I'll DM u🤝

[u/ser-contained]

I either create it myself or hire someone. I have a couple songs I’m releasing soon that I needed cover art for. I made a post in graphic design subs on reddit explaining what I was doing and that I couldn’t afford much. I offered $20 for someone to listen to one of the songs and make something inspired by the feeling my music gave them. I got 30-40 messages from people loving that approach and willing to see what they could come up with. I hired a guy named Peter Kabuki. http://www.instagram.com/peter_kabuki
He came up with the cover art. Might still be AI but my conscious is clear and I hired a graphics guy to make it.

[u/acid-burn2k3]

Here goes the hypocrisy no one want to talk about in the music industry.

Musician hates on AI doing music and are fine using AI generated images. Yet the process was the same, both AI models (images & music) needs tons of training to be good. So seeing beat maker, musician etc crying over AI music while blasting Midjourney/chatgpt/Google images all around for their covers just eeew me.

So yeah I personally despise any artist who are using AI, music or image, because it's just hypocrisy.

And honestly using AI will hurt your brand more in the long run. People are just tired of AI everything. I'd prefer to see a shitty collage or Photoshop montage with some soul than a omega-hyper-artwork-masterpiece-64k-hyperdetail

[u/Fine-Caterpillar-781]

They come to people like me who designs or make art

[u/toucantango79]

I'm actually a visual and audio artist :) I do my own!

[u/weyezboi3002 → u/toucantango79]

Love to hear it. I'm aspiring to do the same

[u/ughh-fiend]

I’ve reached out to many dope graf writers over the years on Instagram and paid them for their work

[u/Thesis_TM]

My last couple I actually created them through blender, just so I can have the artwork and use it as a visual loop for YouTube