Album Motion Artwork: How to Bring Your Album Cover to Life

This article covers:

‍

GET STARTED

Sonomo makes it easy to add Apple Album Motion Artwork to your releases

‍

About Album Motion Artwork

Album Motion Artwork is a new feature on Apple Music that allows artists to create dynamic and visually stunning album artwork that comes to life. The motion art provides a richer experience for the audience, helping to set the mood and accentuate the concept of the album before anyone presses play. Sonomo fully supports Apple Album Motion Artwork.

‍

Where Album Motion Artwork Shows Up

Album motion artwork shows up on the album page on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, as well as on smart TVs. It’s an opportunity to surprise and delight your fans with a beautiful and expressive moving version of your album art. Your album motion may also appear on the Listen Now tab, which is based on a user’s music preferences. Apple’s motion art is made up of two video files (without sound) in two different aspect ratios:

• 1:1 – displayed on the Album Page on Mac, iPad, and smart TVs.
• 3:4 – displayed on the Album Page on iPhone.

Motion Art is not available for all album types, and Apple Music currently only supports the following release formats:

• Music Single
• Music Album
• Mixed Media Album

Please note that Music Video Single and Music Video Album are not supported.
‍

Guidelines for Creating Apple Motion Artwork

If you’ve been asked to provide album motion artwork, these guidelines will help you get started. These guidelines include standards and best practices to help you create visually consistent artwork that is easily recognizable on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and smart TVs.

Requirements for Apple Motion Art

You will need to upload both the 1:1 and 3:4 Motion Art files in order for Sonomo to include this in a Music Album delivery to Apple Music. Sonomo will only include Motion Art in a delivery if both files are present and valid. Sonomo will validate the duration, frames per second, codec, and color space of each video file provided. Once delivered to Apple Music, Motion Art files can no longer be deleted. Motion Art videos that do not meet Apple’s guidelines will be rejected.

‍

File Requirements

• File format: MOV with .mov extension
• Video codec: Apple ProRes 422 or Apple ProRes 4444
• Resolution: 2048×2732 pixels (3×4) or 3840×3840 pixels (1×1) (square pixels 1:1)
• Frame rate: 23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, or 30 fps
• Color space: Rec 709 or sRGB
• Length (duration): between 15 and 35 seconds

‍

If you’d like additional information, head straight to Apple’s Guidelines Website: https://help.apple.com/itc/albummotionguide/#/bc927a183bfb

‍

Get Started

Album Motion Artwork is an exciting new feature that brings album artwork to life on Apple Music. By following the guidelines and requirements outlined in this post, you can create visually consistent artwork that is easily recognizable on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and smart TVs. It’s really easy to upload Motion Artwork to Apple Music with Sonomo. You can learn more about our distribution product and get started right away.

GET STARTED

Sonomo makes it easy to add Apple Album Motion Artwork to your releases