How to prepare vinyl sleeve artwork for the factory

The pieces of a vinyl edition

• Sleeve: front, back and spine, as one extended template or separate pieces depending on the factory. A gatefold adds two inner panels.
• Centre labels: one per side. They are small and circular, with the centre hole in the middle.
• Printed inner sleeve, inserts, poster or obi, if the edition includes them.

Size and resolution

The template gives the exact sizes: they vary by factory, sleeve type and spine width. For reference, a 12″ sleeve is around 31–32 cm square and centre labels are usually around 10 cm in diameter.

Many factories ask for about 300 ppi at final size. On a 12″ sleeve that means roughly 3,700 pixels per side for the front alone, plus bleed. An image of 1,500 or 2,000 pixels, common for covers made for streaming platforms, falls short at that size.

The spine

The spine is narrow and its width depends on the sleeve and number of discs. It usually carries artist, title and catalogue number. Leave room either side of the text: a slight shift when folding can push it onto the front or back.

Centre labels

• Keep text away from the centre hole and the outer edge; the template marks the zones.
• State which label goes on each side (A/B) and the track order if you include it.
• Check small text at actual size: a label is much smaller than it looks on screen.

Checklist

• Your factory’s current template for that format and sleeve type.
• Bleed on every piece and text inside the safe area.
• Images at the requested resolution at actual size.
• Colour, fonts and PDF format per the spec sheet.
• Credits, catalogue number and mandatory text proofread.
• Template layers (guides, dielines) hidden or removed in the final PDF.