Singles in a Row Need a System

Many artists now release a run of singles before a larger record. If each cover starts from a blank page, four singles look like four different projects. A simple system solves it.

Photo: “Vinyl Stack webbed” by FourthFloor, CC BY 2.0.

The idea: fixed parts and moving parts

A series is recognizable when most things stay the same and one or two things change. You decide which is which before the first single comes out.

Fixed (choose three or four):

• Layout: where the main element and the text sit
• Typeface and wordmark position
• The kind of image: always a portrait, always an object, always a shape
• Texture or frame from step 10

Moving (choose one or two):

• The color pair, taken from your palette and its neighbors
• The subject of the image
• A number or a small mark

Why it helps beyond looks

Speed. The second cover takes an hour, because the decisions exist.

Recognition. Each release teaches people the pattern. By the third, they know it is you from the corner of the eye.

A clear ending. When the album or EP arrives, its cover can either complete the pattern or break it on purpose. Both feel intentional because the pattern existed.

Decide what never changes before you design the first single, and the other covers mostly design themselves.

Plan the whole run first

Before finishing cover one, sketch all of them as small rough squares on one page, even if the later songs are not recorded. You are checking two things: that the covers are clearly related, and that each is different enough to tell apart in a list.

If two of them could be confused at thumbnail size, change the moving part more boldly.

Carry it into everything else

The same system extends to the posts, story graphics and video thumbnails of each single. The color pair of single two becomes the color of everything published that month. A release then has its own season inside your identity.

Do this now

Write two short lists for your next run of releases, fixed and moving. Then sketch four small squares that follow them.

Designing the system behind a run of singles is the kind of project we take on with artists. Here is how.