Self Promotion #1 - The Importance of Cover Images

[Cupe]

Since I cover the social media networking for ADJF, there's one thing that comes up time and time again: Using soundcloud cover images for reposting tracks and mixes.

Too many people just throw up a random/cool looking picture and think it doesn't really matter.

I suggest, for the sake of your image as a DJ/Producer, that you rethink this strategy.

You use the same name everywhere, and most often the same sound; so why wouldn't you use regulated imagery?

This is why on every festival poster, the biggest names actually use a trademark image/font for their name. For promotional purposes, your visuals are just as important as your sound, and they have realised this in advance. Everyone wants to make it big, so why aren't you doing the same things big names are doing?

The key is to be consistent.

Find or create something you're happy with, spend the time to work on your images, use a consistent font, try the same image in different colours for variation, put titles in the same place each time — if it's a series, you should DEFINITELY be doing this. Your cover image should have your name (your name should be plastered over EVERYTHING you do). You should also add the title to your mix/track file/ID3 and use the same wording on your promotional images. And CHECK THE FUCKING FILENAMES. People don't want to download 'mix-12-01-14.mp3' because after they do, who the fuck are you to them?

In this age of an 'Attention Market' you're not bidding for lengthy user times. You're bidding for instant attention. And as a performer, you want this end-user attention to repeat until the point they have become a fan.

You work for hours producing professionally sounding tracks and mixes. Why wouldn't you do the same for the main reason people are going to click your links on social networks?

Bid for people's eyeballs before you bid for their ears.

Love,

Cupe

*edit*

Added to first post:

Great post I agree with most of what you've said but I know for a fact in the more "underground" electronic music community generally frown on the DJ font logos every EDM superstar seems to have because of the commercial connotations it holds

I wasn't trying to say 'make a dope logo just like calvin harris and hardwell'. Only that I meant, create something that links back to the DJ/Producer more than a random google image you found.

I certainly didn't mean, restrict yourself to just making a fully sick hecktik alias logo.

I used that as an example of how someone uses imagery to add to their overall persona as a performer which, online, is all you have when you're not a million dollar DJ with a promo team.

The point is, don't restrict your self-promotion by using stupid, random or images that convey no message. Create something that sells you as an artist and is relative because of consistency.

Like this for example:

https://soundcloud.com/duskypines/

Two tracks.

A distinct and re-used background.

Same fonts.

Artist logo/name.

It's not hard to do, so it shouldn't be something you overlook.

For those looking to find a font for their name dafont.com is a great source. You can type your name in and scroll through the various styles to find what you like.

[LabRat]

I use to be all over the shop with this and now with the new alias I've taken this into consideration. My font is the same and I have that little rat head which I'm starting to chuck around.

Nice post

[Robsta]

Great post I agree with most of what you've said but I know for a fact in the more "underground" electronic music community generally frown on the DJ font logos every EDM superstar seems to have because of the commercial connotations it holds

[AlexJ]

Great post I agree with most of what you've said but I know for a fact in the more "underground" electronic music community generally frown on the DJ font logos every EDM superstar seems to have because of the commercial connotations it holds

although very few djs only want to be underground successes only..

[OxyKon]

Very nice post cupe, I need to come up with a logo for my name, I have a font already but I'm thinking of changing it a bit, might try that this weekend

[Cupe]

Great post I agree with most of what you've said but I know for a fact in the more "underground" electronic music community generally frown on the DJ font logos every EDM superstar seems to have because of the commercial connotations it holds

I wasn't trying to say 'make a dope logo just like calvin harris and hardwell'. Only that I meant, create something that links back to the DJ/Producer more than a random google image you found.

I certainly didn't mean, restrict yourself to just making a fully sick hecktik alias logo.

I used that as an example of how someone uses imagery to add to their overall persona as a performer which, online, is all you have when you're not a million dollar DJ with a promo team.

The point is, don't restrict your self-promotion by using stupid, random or images that convey no message. Create something that sells you as an artist and is relative because of consistency.

Like this for example:

https://soundcloud.com/duskypines/

Two tracks.

A distinct and re-used background.

Same fonts.

Artist logo/name.

It's not hard to do, so it shouldn't be something you overlook.

[BeatLeSS]

Epic post, and great example. You're so right, you want to "visually imprint" yourself in peoples minds.

On that note, holy fuck, you've just inspired a thought for my logo.

[Kodiak]

For those looking to find a font for their name dafont.com is a great source. You can type your name in and scroll through the various styles to find what you like.

[Cupe]

Adding that to first post. Thanks Kodiak.

[Narukami]

For those looking to find a font for their name dafont.com is a great source. You can type your name in and scroll through the various styles to find what you like.

Hahaha, that's where I got my "M" logo from. As for my covers, I always try my best to make it at least relevant to the tittle of the track or the feeling you should get when you listen to it. I don't stay "consistent" as you say in this post, in fact, every background is different for each cover but I do try to visualise what they're hearing before they hear it.

Tip: If you need to find a great background for your cover, search for whatever it is you want (eg. sunsets) and add "tumblr" at the end. As much as I dislike Tumblr, they always have some really nice photos in there. (Make sure you credit them, of course)

[yizzle]

Tip: If you need to find a great background for your cover, search for whatever it is you want (eg. sunsets)

..and hit up the person that has hosted the image. it might be copyright.

if you makes millions off a track and have an image linked it it you might end up in a costly law suit, unless you have evidence (emails etc) of them saying 'i give permission for you to.. etc

[Narukami]

Well, if you're gonna sell your song to anyone at all, you should buy an image and it's rights so you can have full rights to use it. I'm just using that as an example for anyone who puts their song up online for free (and I also mentioned to credit them).

[yizzle]

why buy an image when you can just ask for the ok from the person that has it in the first place?

[Narukami]

Well, tbh, I've never sold a song in a store so I don't know the how using images for covers professionally works. I just think that if you give the person who took or made the photo some cash, it wouldn't be such a problem when the your song gets big and the picture is everywhere. I'm probably not viewing this right, though.

Also, I forgot to mention Flickr. Great looking photos and you can straight up search for images with creative licenses. Of course there are some rule to that (eg, non-commercial uses) so you'll have to check that yourself (and still credit them).

[Cupe]

You don't always even need to have somewthing in your image either. Colour patterns or weird shit often work, too.

Or minimalist simple shit.

Or just go outside and take some photo's and edit the fuck out of them in photoshop

Here's an example I used for a short while that just uses words:

-------

-------

-------

[Trennaa]

Great read - however, I've done a bit of looking into this, and can someone explain to me (in lamens terms) ID3 tags?

Fanks in advance

[Cupe]

Great read - however, I've done a bit of looking into this, and can someone explain to me (in lamens terms) ID3 tags?

Fanks in advance

ID3 is a metadata container most often used in conjunction with the MP3 audio file format.

It allows information such as the title, artist, album, track number, and other information about the file to be stored in the file itself.

There are two unrelated versions of ID3: ID3v1 and ID3v2.

An ID3 tag is used to embed information in an MP3 file. It is not an official specification of the MP3 format.

ID3 version 1 includes simple fields such as album, artist, and title through a 30-character text field embedded at the end of the MP3 file, using 128 bytes of total data.

ID3 version 2 has been totally rewritten to allow variable length fields. It includes lengthier textual information plus other information such as who encoded the file, Web sites, pictures, lyrics, and other information.

The following information is from iTunes Help:

"If a song's title and information does not appear correctly, the file was probably created using a program that stores information differently than iTunes. You may be able to resolve the problem by converting the song information to or from a different storage format.

To change the format of the tags: Select the songs you want to convert, then choose Convert ID3 Tags from the Advanced menu. You can choose a version of ID3, and you can convert the character set to other formats. This character set option is useful for songs with information in languages that use non-Roman characters.

This option is useful if you want to use your MP3 files with another program that uses a different format, or if you have files from the Internet that seem to have scrambled information. If converting the tags does not correct the problem, you'll have to correct the information by hand."

[Trennaa]

Smartassery taken out of the following sentance: but I wikipedia'd it already..

What it SOUNDS like to me, is when you burn a file from (for example) Nero burning ROM, and add the Artist - Title information to the CDA, so if you put it into a CD player, its going to read "DJ - Track"?

Orrrrrr, am I way off?

[Cupe]

It depends whether the device is set to read from ID3 or filenames.

The ID3 allows for additional information outside of the track title and artist name.

Like this example:

[Mitch]

Practically everything uses ID3v2 nowadays, so v1 isn't really relevant.

Basically, using a tag editing program (e.g. iTunes) - it allows you to put more information about the track into the file, rather than just using massive filenames. ID3 is a standard, so any program that plays MP3 files will be able to read the ID3 information.

The fields I use the most are: Title, Artist, Album, Track #, Key, BPM, Genre

Yes, it is possible to use Nero to burn CD file with advanced parameters, so when you put the cd into a CDJ it shows the title and artist, rather than just the filename of the cd.

[Cupe]

I gotta stress this again.

You're only fucking yourself over.

Since I cover the social media networking for ADJF, there's one thing that comes up time and time again: Using soundcloud cover images for reposting tracks and mixes.

Too many people just throw up a random/cool looking picture and think it doesn't really matter.

I suggest, for the sake of your image as a DJ/Producer, that you rethink this strategy.

You use the same name everywhere, and most often the same sound; so why wouldn't you use regulated imagery?

This is why on every festival poster, the biggest names actually use a trademark image/font for their name. For promotional purposes, your visuals are just as important as your sound, and they have realised this in advance. Everyone wants to make it big, so why aren't you doing the same things big names are doing?

The key is to be consistent.

Find or create something you're happy with, spend the time to work on your images, use a consistent font, try the same image in different colours for variation, put titles in the same place each time — if it's a series, you should DEFINITELY be doing this. Your cover image should have your name (your name should be plastered over EVERYTHING you do). You should also add the title to your mix/track file/ID3 and use the same wording on your promotional images. And CHECK THE FUCKING FILENAMES. People don't want to download 'mix-12-01-14.mp3' because after they do, who the fuck are you to them?

In this age of an 'Attention Market' you're not bidding for lengthy user times. You're bidding for instant attention. And as a performer, you want this end-user attention to repeat until the point they have become a fan.

You work for hours producing professionally sounding tracks and mixes. Why wouldn't you do the same for the main reason people are going to click your links on social networks?

Bid for people's eyeballs before you bid for their ears.

Love,

Cupe

*edit*

Added to first post:

Great post I agree with most of what you've said but I know for a fact in the more "underground" electronic music community generally frown on the DJ font logos every EDM superstar seems to have because of the commercial connotations it holds

I wasn't trying to say 'make a dope logo just like calvin harris and hardwell'. Only that I meant, create something that links back to the DJ/Producer more than a random google image you found.

I certainly didn't mean, restrict yourself to just making a fully sick hecktik alias logo.

I used that as an example of how someone uses imagery to add to their overall persona as a performer which, online, is all you have when you're not a million dollar DJ with a promo team.

The point is, don't restrict your self-promotion by using stupid, random or images that convey no message. Create something that sells you as an artist and is relative because of consistency.

Like this for example:

https://soundcloud.com/duskypines/

Two tracks.

A distinct and re-used background.

Same fonts.

Artist logo/name.

It's not hard to do, so it shouldn't be something you overlook.

For those looking to find a font for their name dafont.com is a great source. You can type your name in and scroll through the various styles to find what you like.