In this post, we’ll explain how to use two of the top artificial intelligence artwork generators – Midjourney and DALLE to help you make album art for your music.
In our recent post about how to use Chat GPT for artists and musicians, we share how it helped brainstorm song titles, lyrics, and melodies for a hypothetical song about “finding yourself through traveling the world”.
In this post, we’ll continue to use the same hypothetical song for the examples.
Making Cover Art with Midjourney (Example):
Prompt: “Album art for a song about finding yourself through travel”
Midjourney will create 4 images for you. Then you will have the option to ask to give you upscaled versions (hit the U buttons) or more variations (hit the V buttons) of each image.
Here are the 4 images it gave me within a minute or two.
These all came out pretty cool and impressive in my opinion. Not bad for a first try. So I went ahead and hit the “Upscale” button for each image. Results below.
I think these would all look great as a Spotify album or single cover.
Imagine the time it would take to make these from scratch.
Midjourney Cover Art #1:
Midjourney Cover Art #2:
Midjourney Cover Art #3:
Midjourney Cover Art #4:
Making Cover Art with DALLE 2 (Example):
Next, I tried DALLE 2 to create cover art for the same song.
Here was my first attempt.
Not bad, but I wasn’t satisfied with any of the options, so I keep refining the prompt and trying new things until I got some results that felt better.
DALLE Cover Art #1:
DALLE Cover Art #2:
DALLE Cover Art #3:
DALLE Cover Art #4:
What are the legal implications of using AI-generated art?
This is a great question. With such a new and unprecedented technology, the legal situation seems to be fluid.
I’m no legal expert, but my general understanding is that while AI-generated art is not copyright protected, it can still be used for commercial purposes as long as this is within the terms of the AI company you are using.
However, since you cannot copyright it, this means you don’t own the art, it is public domain and can be used by others.
That being said, this is certainly a gray area and will continue to evolve in the coming months.
Final Thoughts
These tools are exciting. At the least, I recommend trying them out and having some fun messing with around. You may just find that they become a great resource for you moving forward.
Personally, Midjourney is my favorite as I like the artwork it creates the best, however, some may find it technically challenging to use, while DALLE is a bit more straightforward.
Keep in mind, you could always simply use the AI for inspiration and then create the artwork on your own in Photoshop or with a designer.
Want to make your own AI cover art?
Try Midjourney: Go to the Midjourney Quickstart Guide to learn how to get started.
Try DALLE: Go to the DALLE website and sign up
Additional AI Art Generators:
Note: many of these are free to try.
Looking to Promote Your Music?
Try our Spotify Playlist Pitching and TikTok Music Promotion services.
