Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about your show’s cover art, sometimes known as your artwork or your podcast logo. Just like your episode titles, first impressions are everything. Having attractive cover art that stands out is so vital when your show lines up against thousands of others in apps like Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Your artwork should be at least 1400 x 1400 pixels, in JPG form, and it needs to be under 500kb in size. Apple actually recommends 3000 x 3000-pixel files, but we’ve found because they’re much weightier, those big files can cause issues with your RSS feeds further down the line. So I’d usually opt for the smaller formats to help avoid running into the same problem. Your artwork will normally be viewed as a thumbnail - pretty small on-screen, often on a phone - so don’t cram any small text onto it. In fact, the *only* text on there would ideally be your podcast name. Another reason your name should be descriptive... I often think that simpler is better with artwork. Your podcast title, covering practically the whole space, maybe with your brand colours and a background image, or a really small illustration alongside. You can create decent cover art for free on Canva, which I use all the time. They even have podcast logo templates on there. Or, you might want to hire a freelancer on a platform like Fiverr if you’d like someone to do it for you. The benefit of working with a designer is that they can help you to encapsulate your branding. Cover art is a bit like choosing a podcast name, in many ways. You’re trying to find that balance between descriptiveness, cleverness, and quirkiness, all in one static image - and it all still needs to work well when viewed as a thumbnail on a phone screen. For a more detailed look at designing your perfect podcast logo, go to http://ThePodcastHost.com/art