Starting today, Spotify is rolling out a new feature in beta for both Free and Premium subscribers that allows you to create your own cover art for your saved playlists. The feature is available through the mobile app, and can be accessed through the options menu when viewing a saved playlist.
Once the menu has been opened, you can start with a blank canvas or from an original photo that you upload, and then Spotify provides a selection of elements and customisations to finish creating an image that defines the playlist, this is then visible to all users on Spotify who the playlist has been shared with (or who can view it pubically). The elements that Spotify provides for customisation include:
- Text styles, colours, and effects.
- Background colours and gradients.
- Image masking and visual effects.
- Exclusive stickers from artists such as Jun Ioneda, Sam Lyon, James Marshall, and Shivani Parasnis.
Each playlist can only have one custom cover art at a time, and when a new one is created it will override the previous one that was saved. Spotify recommends that if you want to have multiple cover arts for one playlist, that you should make a copy of the playlist and then create the artwork for the new copy separately.
In the announcement Spotify also features some custom artworks that have been created using this new tool by music artists, visual creators, and artists, to show an example of how it can be used to add personality to your playlists.
This new feature follows Apple Music, which added the ability to set custom artwork in iOS 17.1, which was released in October 2023 from a selection of predefined images or choosing one from your photo library. Spotify"s tool gives users a lot more flexibility however, using an uploaded image as a base and providing the customisation tools to make it unique.