Brand Kit for Podcast Hosts: Cover Art, Show Notes, Social

A podcast brand lives almost entirely inside one square image. Someone scrolling a directory sees your cover art next to a hundred others, at the size of a thumbnail, before they read a single word of the title. A good show with a weak cover stays invisible there.

Get the cover right and the rest of the kit is optional polish. So the work goes in that order: build the cover first, make it legible when it is small, then add the pieces that help once a listener already knows who you are.

The short answer

Start with these:

• Square cover art built at 3000x3000 pixels, RGB, saved as a JPEG or PNG
• A short list of brand colors and one or two typefaces that come from the cover
• A repeatable episode card template for Instagram, audiograms, and link previews
• One consistent way to shoot and edit host and guest portraits
• A show-note header only if you actually publish episode pages that need one

The cover is the single required asset. Directories will not accept a show without it, and it is the only image that reaches people who have never heard of you.

What is essential, optional, and easy to skip

For a new show the priority looks like this:

"Essential" here means essential to a credible, consistent show. The only hard technical requirement is the cover art itself.

Cover art that survives the directory

Your cover has to work at two sizes at once. It sits large on the show page and shrinks to roughly the size of an app icon in search results and Up Next lists. A design that reads at full size can turn into a smear at thumbnail size, so build for the small version and let the large one take care of itself.

Build the file at 3000x3000 pixels. That is the working size every major platform recommends, and it downscales cleanly to the smaller versions each app generates.

Apple Podcasts accepts artwork from a minimum of 1400x1400 to a maximum of 3000x3000 pixels, in the RGB color space, saved as a JPEG or PNG. Spotify recommends the same 3000x3000 square, takes a JPEG or PNG, and keeps the file under 512KB, which usually means exporting a JPEG at around 80 to 90 percent quality. Amazon Music pulls the same square image from your podcast feed, so a single 3000x3000 file covers all three. There is no separate Amazon size to chase.

Design for the thumbnail. Use a large, readable title, strong contrast between the text and the background, and very little else. Skip the microphone clip art, the long tagline, and the episode number. Spotify's own guidance on show art makes the same point: small text and busy detail disappear at the sizes that matter.

Pull two or three colors and one or two typefaces out of the final cover and write them down. Every other graphic in this kit should use them. That is what makes an audiogram, a guest promo, and the cover itself look like the same show rather than unrelated posts.

Episode social cards

The cover appears inside podcast apps. It does not appear when you share an episode to Instagram, post an audiogram, or drop a link in a group chat. Those need their own image, and a template solves it once.

Make one card layout you can refill each week. A square works for feed posts and audiograms; a vertical version covers stories and reels. Leave fixed spots for the episode title, the guest name, and the cover thumbnail, and use the colors and type you already chose. The point is that filling it in should take a minute, not a design session.

Keep the text short and high in contrast for the same reason the cover is plain. Most of these get seen at a glance while someone scrolls. The social sizing that applies to any logo or brand graphic applies here too, so reuse those dimensions instead of inventing new ones.

Host and guest portraits

If you run interviews, a photo of the guest usually anchors the promo. Ten guests photographed ten different ways look like ten different shows. One consistent treatment ties them together.

Pick a treatment and reuse it: the same crop and color grade, with the name and show mark in a fixed spot. A guest sends whatever headshot they have, and your template gives it back in the show's look. Do the same with your own host portrait so the person and the show read as one brand.

You do not need a studio for this. A repeatable crop and a single editing preset are enough to make the series feel deliberate.

Show-note headers, only if you need one

Episode pages sometimes show a banner above the notes. Many hosting platforms and most listening apps never display one, so this sits near the bottom of the list.

If your episode pages do use a header, treat it like the episode card: a fixed template with the show's colors and type, filled in per episode. If they do not, skip it. A header nobody sees is not worth a weekly slot on your to-do list.

One page to keep it straight

While one person makes every asset, a single reference page is enough. Fuller brand guidelines can wait until more people are producing episodes.

Cover art file (3000x3000):
Primary and neutral colors:
Display typeface:
Body typeface:
Episode card template:
Portrait crop and edit preset:
Show mark for cards and portraits:

Whether the show mark is a wordmark or a standalone symbol depends on your name and how it reads when it is tiny. The same tradeoff behind using an icon in a logo decides it here, since this mark spends most of its life at the corner of a card.

A practical launch order

Build the cover first and test it at thumbnail size before anything else. Once it works, pull the colors and type out of it. Then make the episode card template and settle on a portrait treatment. Leave the show-note header until you know your episode pages actually display one.

Brandize can keep the logo, colors, type, and reusable brand assets in one place so your cover, cards, and portraits come from the same source. The show still needs good audio and a cover that reads small. The kit's job is to make everything around it look like the same podcast.