How to make a Spotify Canvas.
A Canvas is the vertical loop that replaces your cover in the Now Playing view of the Spotify app. Here are Spotify's rules, then how to make one from your cover and upload it.
Opens with a vinyl in the Canvas format. Free to design, sign in only to export.
What Spotify requires
- 3 to 8 seconds long.
- Vertical, 9:16.
- Between 720 and 1080 pixels tall.
- An MP4 or JPG file.
Source: Spotify, Canvas guidelines. Spotify also suggests footage with no talking or singing, no rapid cuts or flashing, and leaving out your song and artist name, since they already show in the Now Playing view. It names three kinds of loop: a continuous loop, a hard cut, and a rebound that plays forwards then backwards.
Make it
- 1
Add your song and your cover
A Canvas has no sound, but the studio needs the song to know your clip. Drop both on the studio.
- 2
Pick what turns
In Player, choose Disc, Vinyl, Turntable or CD. A CDJ, an iPod and a Walkman play the song and never loop, so they cannot be a Canvas. A record is a continuous loop: the same position at the end as at the start.
- 3
Choose the Canvas format
In Export, tick Canvas. It is 9:16 and 1080 by 1920, as long as the most whole turns of the disc that fit in 8 seconds. An animated background has its period set to that loop, so it meets itself too.
- 4
Check the speed
If one turn of the disc lasts more than 8 seconds, the studio says so and tells you the speed to set: 8 rpm or more in Player.
- 5
Create the Canvas
Tap Create Canvas and save the MP4. It has no sound and no watermark. Exporting a Canvas is Pro; designing and previewing it is free.
- 6
Upload it to Spotify
On the web, open artists.spotify.com, go to Music, pick the track and click Add Canvas. In the Spotify for Artists app: Music, the track, then Canvas. Spotify lists who can add one: the first main artist on the track, a main artist on both the track and the release, or an Admin or Editor.
What makes a good one
- Keep it quiet. Slow motion and few colors read behind a track better than a busy loop.
- Match your cover. A record with your cover on its label and a background in the cover's colors ties the Canvas to the release.
- Edges can be cut on some phones: the record is centered, with room around it.
- Change it later. Spotify says you can update a Canvas over time, so a new release can have a new one.
Source for the upload steps: Spotify, Adding a Canvas. The Canvas page has the short version.
Questions
- What are the Spotify Canvas specs?
- Spotify asks for 3 to 8 seconds, vertical 9:16, between 720 and 1080 pixels tall, as an MP4 or JPG.
- Can I make a Canvas for free?
- You can design and preview one for free in AudioAnimate. Exporting the Canvas file is Pro.
- Why does my Canvas loop smoothly?
- The disc makes a whole number of turns in the clip, so the last frame leads into the first one.
Try it with your own track.
Drop a cover and a song in the studio. Everything is open to try, and nothing to pay until you export.