Those of you from a certain era most likely created mixtapes. The word ‘mixtape’ is a curious one as yes, they hold a moment of nostalgia in memory and a romantic essence as they were often created within a relationship for a desired effect. Most of the time the recording on a cassette was just pirating a tape or CD that a friend had already bought to save you a few quid on buying it yourself. There was also a shortlived time when itunes arrived, you could pop a CD in your Mac and create mix CDs or just straight rips of an entire album and burn a copy there and then.
Looking back a lot of the nostalgia often comes from the decoration. Reverse fold the inlay card and there were lines to write the playlist on, the better the penmanship the better it looked. The other option was to draw on it, personalise it or find an image on card or paper, cut it out and use it as the inlay. No rules just persoanl choice and creativity within a folded rectangle.
As someone who owns and still buys the occasional cassette, still owns their entire CD collection and buys way too many records the visual is still important. The post-MTV, print is dead, streaming era sterilised the art side of the music to a certain extent, an era that has now passed with the visual at the forefront morseo with a resurgence of Vinyl and band t-shirts as two easy examples. Fashion is also being influenced by music artists again, i’ve not seen it to this extent for a while.
So whats the new update to the mixtape thinking?
Take Your Spotify Playlists to the Next Level With Custom Cover Art
Creating cover art on Spotify
All you need is a mobile device to access and use this feature. Whether you’re on iOS or Android, head to the Spotify mobile app and select a playlist that you personally created or create a new one.
Tap the three-dot menu on the playlist page and then select “Create cover art” within the menu options.
- From there, you can upload an original photo of your own and add or update a variety of elements, including:
- Text styles, colours, and effects featuring our custom typeface, Spotify Mix.
- Background colors and gradients.
- Image masking and visual effects.
- Exclusive stickers from artists.
