On many platforms, the cover art and podcast graphics will be the first contact a potential listener will have with your podcast — and will quickly become a big part of your ‘brand’. So you need to make sure it’s at the right specs, it conveys the right message about what your podcast is about, and it’s visually attractive.

Here are three things you need to think about when creating your podcast artwork.

1. Technical specifications

The minimum size for artwork should be 1400x1400 pixels and the file shouldn’t be larger than 512KB. It’s big, but here’s why: many distribution platforms (Apple Podcasts, Castbox, Spotify, and so on) will display your cover art in various sizes depending on the placement (front page, podcast selection, notifications).

Those images are not always the same size, so you need to provide the finest and cleanest version from the beginning to make sure your cover won’t be degraded by the different usages. Poor quality cover art will convey the wrong message about your podcast — you want listeners to think of your podcast as high quality.

2. Convey the right message

You probably have a lot to say about your podcast, but there’s not enough space on a cover to display absolutely everything. The role of the cover art is to show the essence of your podcast. Remember, most people will view it as a small thumbnail on a phone, so remove anything superfluous and make sure the name of the podcast is large and easy to read.

Use the codes of your genre. Making a comedy podcast? Have a fun cover, a silly logo, or use drawing instead of pictures. Fiction? Think cinema posters, create a landscape, personify your main character on the cover.

Pro tip: Don’t put the word 'podcast' on your cover. Potential listeners know it’s a podcast, so it’s unnecessary and takes up precious space.

3. Make it visually attractive

Your cover will be next to hundreds of others, so you need to convey your uniqueness. Use different colors and typographies to make yours stand out — but, if you have an existing brand, try to make it consistent with this.

Some great examples: