It’s a no to our list below 👇

There’s a few categories of things that are important to steer away from when choosing and uploading your RouteNote release’s cover art…

Here’s a list of the kind of things that you shouldn’t include in your release artwork:

Contact Information

This includes:

1. Website addresses
2. Email addresses
3. Social media usernames (e.g. “@artistname”)
4. Hashtags (e.g. “#songtitle”)
5. Phone numbers
6. QR codes

Our partner stores won’t want to be presenting links to content that they haven’t checked. Even if they did check it, things like websites and social media pages are likely to change! It may be content that they wouldn’t want to advertise, e.g. it could be illegal, offensive, distasteful, and so on. The easiest way for stores to deal with this is to prohibit all contact information in release artwork.

Store or social media logos

This includes:

1. Social media site logos (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram)
2. Music store logos (e.g. Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube)

Unfortunately, by featuring a logo for a music store, this could be effectively advertising their competitors. Stores wouldn’t want to do this! Social media logos have the same problem as contact information; if a customer looks a musician up on social media, the store has no control over what content is there. Therefore, please don’t use either music store logos, or social media site logos, in your artwork.

Advertising

Advertising may be defined as:

1. Requesting follows on social media E.g., “Look me up on socials!”
2. Text promoting your other content E.g., “EP out next week” on a single, “New single coming soon”, “Find me on Bandcamp”, or similar.
3. Any text giving prices of the release.

References to physical releases

This includes:

1. References to physical formats (e.g. the CD logo, or DVD logo)
2. Barcodes

We also do not allow any references to physical releases within artwork, e.g. artwork from the CD/cassette version of a release. The thinking is that if you’ve uploaded the artwork from an older CD version of the release, and it’s making reference to it being on CD (e.g. with the CD logo), then this is the wrong artwork and is inaccurate. It’s sometimes the little things that matter!

Have a watch of our handy video below for more tips!

If you have any further queries, feel free to get in touch with us!

See also:
Can I use any image for my release artwork?
Can I use logos or brands in my artwork?
Can I use blank artwork for my release?