Designing a vinyl record cover is a unique challenge—a blend of art, precision, and a whole lot of patience. When Dan Dark approached me to create the cover for his debut solo album, “Dark Avenger,” I saw it as an opportunity to push GenAI tools like MidJourney, Magnific, Krea, and Topaz to their limits. From crafting an artist logotype to designing front and back covers, inner sleeves, and promotional graphics, this project took me on a journey through thousands of image renderings. Here’s how it all came together—and the lessons learned along the way.

At the end of 2023, I was asked to design a vinyl record cover for Dan Dark. The request likely came because of the work I’d been doing for Peder Pan’s Facebook page, along with some mutual friends Dan and I shared. Initially, we had a couple of meetings to brainstorm ideas, themes, and style. About a month later, after some exploratory ideation and trial runs with MidJourney, I had narrowed it down to 2-3 promising concepts.

The first part of the project was creating the artist’s logotype, a key element that would set the tone for the album’s visuals. This was followed by designing the main album cover (front and back) for the vinyl, including an inner sleeve and labels for the vinyl plate. Additionally, the project included a few promotional images for Spotify singles.

Working on graphical originals for record covers was a bit tricky at first—I didn’t have my old vinyl collection on hand for reference. Fortunately, the record label provided templates with essential measurements, helping me work within the correct dimensions. Designing for vinyl comes with its own set of challenges: you need to consider bleeds, cuts, and fold areas, which means extending certain parts of the image to account for the physical assembly of the cover. Ensuring these details were perfect was meticulous work, but ultimately rewarding. After everything was finalized, I realized I’d rendered around 3,000 images for this task alone!

To Sum Up the Work

This project was an excellent test of GenAI tools and their capabilities in detailed graphic design. Tools like MidJourney excelled in fast, exploratory ideation, while Magnific, Krea, and Topaz allowed me to refine images to meet the high-resolution demands required for quality vinyl prints. Here’s a breakdown of the output: Graphic Design: Image creation, concepts, logotype, and print originals
Elements: Artist Logotype, front and back cover, inner sleeve (front and back), vinyl labels, and promotional images for online media.
Tools: MidJourney v.6, Krea, Magnific, Topaz PhotoAI.