A Bandcamp album cover is square type, not a music video

The SKU is a square cover with the album title readable at grid size. Ideogram holds the letters. Transistor show art is a podcast host page; /for/musicians is the episode. Do not generate a fake studio take as the cover.

The tile on a Bandcamp grid is a square with a name a listener can read at stamp size. That is a layout still. A constructed two-shot in a fake booth is a music video you did not shoot, a band you did not clear, and a cover that fails at 64 pixels. Design the square. Leave the take off the generate.

The SKU is a square with a readable title

Bandcamp sells the storefront: the album page, the merch, the grid. The merchandisable object on that page is artwork: square, title-forward, the same file across the profile and the embed. The track is a different SKU. Cover art is not a freeze of a conversation the model invented.

Do not prompt “band in a professional studio, cinematic take, album energy” and upload that as the cover. You will get faces you cannot name and type the grid will crush. Hierarchy has to survive the crop. A fake booth does not.

Generate an image from text is the named stills job when you are locking that square from a brief, not from a camera. Describe the layout: album title, a simple mark, a background that still reads small. Do not describe a scene with people unless those people are real, cleared, and already the act’s face in photographs you own. A generated singer is a replica.

If you already have a real studio still, it still has to letter. A moody wide of the booth with no title is a photo, not cover art. Put the title on as design, or start from a type-native stills row.

Ideogram and Seedream hold the letters

Ideogram V4 is Ideogram’s text-to-image row: high-quality images, posters, and logos with crisp visuals and accurate text rendering. 6 credits. audio is null. No duration. That is a cover, a lockup, a poster — not a clip.

Seedream 5.0 Pro is ByteDance’s flagship text-to-image model: deep-thinking prompt understanding, native text rendering in 14 languages, precise control over dense layouts and structured designs. 7 credits. audio is null. No duration. Use it when the square is busy — a subtitle, a catalog number, a stacked title that still has to read.

Neither row is a talking take. Quoted lyric in the prompt does not become a soundtrack. It becomes letter-shaped marks you have to proof. Generate, inspect every glyph at 100%, then ship the square.

Prompt the cover, not the video. Album title. Contrast. A mark that survives a stamp. Stop. “Cinematic studio take, band laughing” is how the title disappears and two invented people become the brand. If legal needs a wordmark the model cannot hold, composite the type after.

Transistor is podcast art; /for/musicians is the episode

Transistor show art is already a post: a podcast host sells the show page, and the SKU is square cover art with legible title type. Do not twin that page. A Bandcamp album is a record listing, not an RSS tile. Same square grammar, different storefront. Do not upload last season’s podcast lockup as this LP.

AI video for musicians is the creator page: a 15-second hook from the actual song, timed to its most quotable moment. Film ideas there are a real performance or studio-session clip, a behind-the-song story, a live-crowd reaction. Platforms: TikTok and Reels. Four posts a week. 9:16.

That is the episode calendar — the hook clip that drives a stream. It is not Bandcamp cover art. Do not rewrite that /for. Do not freeze a visualizer frame as the square the storefront displays on every grid. A hook clip is a take with a timestamp. Cover art is a layout that has to last the release. If the act’s face is a real person, photograph that person and design type on that still. Do not ask Ideogram to invent the singer so the square “has energy.”

A thumbnail harvest is not the cover

Generate a video thumbnail pulls a single still from a video you already have: extract_video_frames at a timestamp you name, frame_count set to 1, a usable image URL back. Source resolution caps quality. It extracts. It does not design.

That job is for a video you have locked — a Shorts poster, a clip card, a visualizer frame. It is not the Bandcamp square. Harvesting a talking two-shot and uploading it as album art is how the cover becomes a fake studio take.

Lock the square on Ideogram V4 or Seedream 5 Pro. Proof the title. Ship that file to Bandcamp as the cover. Cut hook clips on the musicians page. Harvest a thumbnail from a keeper clip only if a platform wants a video poster, not as a substitute for the cover. If you would not hang the square on the album page, you do not have cover art yet.

FAQ

Can we use a generated studio still as the Bandcamp cover?

No. That still is a fake take and invented people. The SKU is square art with a title that reads at grid size. Design the cover. Record the video separately, with real performers.

Ideogram V4 or Seedream 5 Pro?

Ideogram V4 is posters and logos, accurate text, 6 credits. Seedream 5 Pro is dense layouts and native text in 14 languages, 7 credits. Both are stills. Neither is a music video.

Is /for/musicians the page for album covers?

No. That page is hook clips, captions, and short-form growth: a 15-second chorus, four posts a week. This page is the Bandcamp cover: a square the grid will display for the release.

Can I extract a frame from the music video and upload it as artwork?

You can extract a frame with generate a video thumbnail. That is a poster of a take. It is not designed cover art. Use it for a video file after lock, not as the Bandcamp square.