For at least a couple of decades, I have been working under the principle that each song I write, arrange, record and/or release should have it's own dedicated artwork. Given, more than ever, songs are distributed, streamed and consumed one at a time, it makes sense that each song should have its own related cover art, a 'song tile' representing the visual essence of the song.
Groups of songs bundled together as albums and/or CDs generally still all share the same 'cover art' for 99.9999999% of commercial releases. This is still the global standard. However, I have also committed my personal releases to a specific cover art template designed to provide a consistent catalog where the individual songs are celebrated over one (often random) image that has nothing to do with the collection in the group.
My template is intentional partly because it is unique. It is also instantly recognizable, like a fingerprint sticking out in a sea of album art noise. I generally also use highly saturated, iconic images where the color palate is designed to vibrate and attract attention relative to the art school standard designs (and 'jazzy' - read: arbitrary, faux-artistic, often-nature-related song titles that often go along with instrumental music.)
An example of my standard 9-songtile template is here:
Tiny Orchestral Moments, CD3 from Peak Week 1. This CD will be released one song at a time over the next three years along with ~150 other recordings and videos from the Tiny Orchestral Moments workshops since 2016.
Will other artists and labels eventually adopt the practice of individual album art for each track? I do not care. This is my chosen framework and principle designed to give each song its own visual voice. And designed to challenge the artist / producer to consider each song - and song tile - as separate cells within the same entity.
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