A single with a real campaign behind it needs about 40 visual files, not five. Build them all from one approved creative direction, in this order: direction and hero master first, platform assets second, paid variants third, refresh material after release. The release plan below lists every asset from six weeks out to four weeks after release, with its spec, platform, owner and due week.
Most music release checklists cover the business side well: distributor, metadata, editorial pitch, pre-saves. Then the visual side of the music marketing plan shrinks to one line, "prepare content". That line is where campaigns slip. A Canvas gets rejected the week of release, a Short gets blocked, or the artist is asked to approve 30 separate files and approves none of them on time.
How many visual assets does a single release need?
Count the files, not the formats. One "teaser" is three vertical clips. One "ad" is three hooks in two aspect ratios, so six files. Here is the pack for a priority single, totalled from the week-by-week table below:
| Layer | What's in it | Files |
|---|---|---|
| Source | Direction board, cover art, hero master (16:9 and 9:16) | 4 |
| Platform assets | Spotify Canvas, YouTube visualizer or lyric video, thumbnail | 3 |
| Social | Announcement (feed and story), 3 teasers, out-now (feed and story), artist profile image | 8 |
| Short-form lyric cuts | 4 before release, 3 more in week +2 | 7 |
| Paid | Pre-save set (3 hooks × 2 ratios), out-now set (3 × 2), week +1 refresh (2 × 2) | 16 |
| Tail | Week +4 alternate cut and new key visual | 2 |
| Total | 40 |
An EP or album focus track can add Apple Music Motion artwork (two files), a Spotify Countdown Page video, and an official or performance video for Spotify if the artist has upload access. An independent artist with no ad budget drops the paid layer and lands near 24. Use the number to staff and budget the campaign. It isn't a target.
Build the release plan around one creative direction
Every asset in that table derives from three things: the direction board, the cover and the hero master. If the Canvas, the lyric video and the pre-save ad are each briefed separately, you get three looks, and the artist reviews three times. So build in this order:
- Direction board. Six to ten key frames, the palette, the type, how things move (slow push or hard cuts, grain or clean) and a short do/don't list. This is what the artist approves.
- Hero master. The longest, best-looking piece of motion in the campaign, made from the board, in a 16:9 version and a native 9:16 version.
- Derivatives. Canvas, visualizer, teasers, cutdowns and ads are cut or generated from the master and the board. Nobody invents a new look at this stage.
That's how release packs work in Visuals: the direction is saved as a Skill and the production steps as a Flow, so the Canvas and the cutdowns start from the same references as the hero, and any character in the campaign stays consistent from shot to shot. Hall Pass shows one cover carried through an announcement, a street poster, a vinyl mock-up, a billboard and a save message.
Will your 16:9 master survive a vertical crop?
Most of the campaign is vertical, and most masters are horizontal. Here's the arithmetic:
Vertical crop width = source height × 9 ÷ 16
- From a 1920×1080 master you get 608×1080. That clears Spotify Canvas (720–1080 px tall, per Spotify) and TikTok's 540×960 minimum (TikTok Ads). But Meta recommends 1440×2560 for Reels ads (Meta Ads Guide), so you'd be upscaling 2.4×.
- From a 3840×2160 master you get 1215×2160, which scales cleanly to 1080×1920 and needs only a small upscale for 1440×2560.
Resolution is the smaller problem. A 9:16 crop keeps 31.6% of a 16:9 frame's width (81/256), so anything that matters has to sit in the centre third. For the pieces that carry the campaign (Canvas, teasers, ad hooks), generate or shoot native verticals from the same references, and keep cropping for filler cuts.
Release plan for a single: the week-by-week checklist
Owners are roles. On a label campaign they're different people; on an independent release, one person may hold all of them. "Gate" refers to the three approvals in the next section.
| Week | Asset | Format / spec | Platform | Owner | Due |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| −6 | Direction board | 6–10 key frames, palette, type, motion rules | Internal | Creative lead | Gate 1 by end of week |
| −6 | Cover art, final | Distributor spec, usually 3000×3000 (Orphiq) | DSPs via distributor | Creative lead | Before delivery |
| −5 | Hero master | 16:9 at 3840×2160 if possible, plus a native 9:16 | Source for everything else | Creative lead | Gate 2 by end of week −4 |
| −5 | Announcement | 4:5 at 1080×1350 feed, 9:16 story | Instagram, Facebook | Social | Posts week −4 |
| −4 | Dependency: deliver audio, cover and metadata | The release appears in Spotify for Artists' Upcoming tab about 48 hours after delivery | Distributor | Digital lead | Start of week |
| −4 | Spotify Canvas | 9:16, 3–8 s, 720–1080 px tall, MP4 (no audio) or JPG | Spotify for Artists → Music → Upcoming | Digital lead | Once the release appears |
| −4 | Apple Music Motion (EP/album) | 3840×3840 and 2048×2732, 8–35 s, no audio, codec per distributor | Via distributor | Digital lead | 2–3 weeks out (see traps) |
| −4 | Teasers ×3 | 9:16, 1080×1920, 7–15 s, text inside the safe zone | TikTok, Reels, Shorts | Social | First post week −3 |
| −3 | Pre-save/pre-add ads: 3 hooks × 9:16 and 4:5 | Meta: 9:16 Reels/Stories, 4:5 feed. TikTok: 9:16, at least 540×960 | Meta, TikTok | Paid media | Live week −2 |
| −3 | Countdown Page video (album/EP) | Vertical video | Spotify Countdown Page | Digital lead | With the page |
| −2 | Visualizer or lyric video | 16:9, H.264 MP4, 1080p minimum, 4K if the master allows | YouTube | Creative lead | Uploaded and scheduled week −1 |
| −2 | YouTube thumbnail | 16:9, up to 3840×2160, JPG or PNG (2 MB limit from mobile) | YouTube | Creative lead | With the upload |
| −2 | Lyric cutdowns ×4 | 9:16, 60 s or less | Shorts, Reels, TikTok | Social | Banked before release |
| −1 | Out-now ads: 3 hooks × 9:16 and 4:5 | As pre-save set | Meta, TikTok | Paid media | Gate 3, live on release day |
| −1 | Out-now posts and artist profile image | 4:5 feed, 9:16 story, new artist image | Instagram, Facebook, Spotify | Social, digital lead | Release day |
| 0 | Official or performance video (if eligible) | 16:9, 1080p+, MP4, one song. No lyric videos or visualizers | Spotify for Artists (beta) or via distributor | Digital lead | Pitch within 7 days of release |
| +1 | Ad refresh: 2 new hooks × 2 ratios | Same specs | Meta, TikTok | Paid media | Replace the two weakest hooks |
| +2 | Lyric cutdowns ×3 | 9:16, 60 s or less, lines not yet used | Shorts, Reels, TikTok | Social | Weeks +2 to +3 |
| +4 | Alternate cut and new key visual (optionally a new Canvas) | 9:16 and 4:5 | Social, Spotify, press | Creative lead | Month-one moment |
Spec sources: Canvas from Spotify's Canvas guidelines, with the no-audio rule from La Cúpula Music. Apple Motion from LabelGrid and Apple's motion guide. Encoding from YouTube's upload settings, and thumbnails from YouTube Help. Meta feed ratios from Jon Loomer's placement guide. Spotify video specs from Spotify's video content policy. Spotify retired new Clips uploads on 17 June 2026 in favour of full-length video (Spotify), so older checklists that list a Clip are out of date.
The distribution and pitch deadlines the visuals depend on
Three non-visual steps set the calendar:
- Delivery unlocks Spotify. Canvas upload, the editorial pitch, the Countdown Page and the release URI for your pre-save link all live in the Upcoming tab, which fills only after the distributor delivers (Spotify). Late metadata means a late Canvas.
- Pitch at least 7 days before release. Spotify then adds the song to followers' Release Radar. Songs and videos are pitched separately (Spotify). In practice, pitch as soon as the release appears.
- Pre-save ads are worth the files. Spotify says nearly 70% of users who pre-save an album stream it in the first week (Spotify for Artists). Apple Music's equivalent is the pre-add (Apple Music for Artists).
Lock the final lyric sheet with the artist before anyone animates a line. Lyrics feed the lyric video, every cutdown and any text on the Canvas, and a wrong word found at Gate 3 means re-rendering all of them.
Who approves release visuals? Three gates, not forty sign-offs
Approval is where the timeline actually slips. By the twelfth file, the artist and manager stop answering, and everything waits.
| Gate | When | What's approved | Who signs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Direction | End of week −6 | The board: frames, palette, type, motion, the do/don't list | Artist, manager, label creative |
| 2. Hero | End of week −4 | The hero master and one sample derivative (usually the Canvas) | Artist, manager, label creative |
| 3. Compliance | Per batch, weeks −4 to +2 | Specs, safe zones, text, rights, explicit flags, platform rules | Campaign owner (digital or marketing lead) |
The rule that makes it work: after Gate 2, the artist sees only derivatives that add new imagery. A cutdown of an approved hero, a resized ad or a thumbnail made from an approved frame goes through Gate 3 alone. Agree on this with the manager in writing in week −6, or every ad refresh becomes an artist approval.
Gate 3 is a checklist, not a matter of taste. Mark a Canvas or video explicit if it shows profanity, drug use or sexual content, as Spotify asks (Spotify). Then check each batch against the traps below.
Spec traps: what gets assets rejected or buried
| Problem | How to spot it | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Canvas rejected | Video over 8.0 s (one distributor says even 1 ms over fails), audio still attached, or a .mov file (La Cúpula Music) | Export a 7.9 s H.264 MP4 with the audio stripped |
| Canvas removed | URLs, ticket links, "follow me", other songs, brands or Spotify's logo. Spotify's policy says any text must relate to the track and stay secondary to the image (Spotify) | Keep the Canvas pure image. Put calls to action in ads and posts |
| YouTube Short blocked worldwide | Over 1 minute with an active copyright claim of any type. Since 8 December 2025 this includes vertical uploads on Official Artist Channels (YouTube Help) | Keep music cutdowns at 60 s or less, and ask your distributor to allowlist the artist's and collaborators' channels (RouteNote) |
| Lyric video refused by Spotify | Spotify's video upload beta takes official music videos, performances, sessions and covers, but not visualizers or lyric videos (Spotify) | Lyric videos go to YouTube. On Spotify, use Canvas |
| Apple Motion rejected | Only one of the two files delivered, a first frame that doesn't match the static cover, cuts to other images, flashing, or visible AI artefacts. Apple reviews each one by hand (LabelGrid), in about 5–7 business days (Unchained Music) | One continuous animation of the cover. Deliver both files 2–3 weeks out |
| Vertical thumbnail ignored | A vertical video with a 16:9 custom thumbnail gets an auto-generated 4:5 one on Home, Explore and Subscriptions (YouTube Help) | Give vertical uploads a 9:16 thumbnail |
| Reel cover cropped on the grid | The profile grid shows a 3:4 crop of the 9:16 cover, losing about 240 px top and bottom (Hopper) | Keep the title and face inside the centre 1080×1440 |
| Captions under the buttons | Text in Meta's no-go bands: 14% top, 35% bottom, 6% each side (Meta Ads Guide). TikTok's safe zone varies with caption length and is published as downloadable files (TikTok Ads) | Check every ad in the platform preview before Gate 3 |
| Long Reel with no reach | Reels over 3 minutes aren't recommended to new audiences (Buffer) | Put the full lyric video on YouTube and post cutdowns as Reels |
| No Countdown Page option | A single, an artist under 3,000 monthly active listeners, or a reissue or deluxe edition (Spotify) | Drop the row and move the effort into teasers |
Post-release: the four weeks most checklists skip
Release week is when a campaign has the most data and the least new material. Plan the tail ahead of time:
- Week +1: replace, don't add. The paid set now shows which hooks work. Swap out the two weakest, keeping the look and changing the hook (a different lyric, a different first frame).
- Week +2: new lines. The first cutdowns used the obvious hook lines. The next three use the lines fans quote in the comments, still at 60 seconds or less.
- Week +4: a reason to post again. An alternate cut of the hero, or a new key visual for a playlist add, a live date or a remix. The alternate cut doesn't need a new shoot: video models that edit existing footage, such as Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash and Seedance 2.5 (both available in Visuals), can give the hero you already have a new treatment within the approved world. Spotify also encourages changing the Canvas over time to tell the current story (Spotify).
Scaling the plan from a single to an album
For an album, run Gate 1 once for the record. Each focus track then gets its own hero and Gate 2, plus its own derivative rows. Non-focus tracks usually need only the platform layer: a Canvas and a visualizer or lyric video each, made from the album board.
That's where a saved process pays off. In Visuals, the board lives as a Skill and the derivative steps as a Flow, so track seven starts from the same references as track one before a person reviews it at Gate 3. The repetitive derivative work is what gets automated; the creative decisions stay where the gates put them, with the artist and the team. Zip Code shows a shared look across announcement, countdown and listening messages. For more on each format, see Spotify Canvas, YouTube visualizers, social content and ad creative.
How this was made: researched and written by the Visuals.fm team with AI assistance, then fact-checked by people against the sources linked in the text.