Acrylic Spotify Album Cover PLAquE

STEP 1: GENERATING SPOTIFY QR CODE

a). Decide on which song, album, artist, or playlist you wish to generate a Spotify QR code for. To get a link for the code, open Spotify, find the artist, playlist or album you want. Tap on the three dots next to it and select “Share.”  Press the Alt button in Windows or the Option key on Mac and click on the “Copy Spotify URL” option when it appears.


b). Paste your URL into www.spotifycodes.com and click Get Spotify Code


c). A panel will appear on the right with customization options. For this tutorial, change it to a black bar color with a white background and export it in an SVG format. Then click Download.

Congrats! Step 1 is complete, you have successfully downloaded your spotify QR code! 

This code will be laser engraved to be scanned within the Spotify app to lead individuals straight to the song, artist, album, or playlist that you wish to share.

STEP 2: DESIGNING YOUR PLAQUE

a). Download this template file. Once downloaded, open this file with Adobe Illustrator. Within Adobe Illustrator you can add the Title of your song along with the Artist.

b). Now that you've added text to your plaque, let's add in the Spotify QR code from Step 1.

Go to File > Open and select the SVG file that you saved with your Spotify QR code. 

Delete the bounding box that is around the QR code and then copy the QR code and paste it into your plaque document. 

While selecting all of your QR code, right click and select Group. This will make it easier to select just the QR code later.  

Scale down your QR code by dragging a corner while holding shift so that it won't resize. Then place it where you wish for the QR code to be on your plaque.


c). Finally, let's customize the sizing of your plaque (optional). 

The template has the plaque sized to 3 inches wide and 4 inches long. If you wish to change this, select your entire plaque design. Make sure your properties tab is open and adjust the measurements to your liking in the Width and Height boxes.

You will need to adjust your artboard if you are making your plaque larger. You can do so by going to File > Document Set Up > Edit Artboards 

d). You're all done formatting your plaque, it's ready to be downloaded! To download your file go to File > Save As. Make sure you save your file as an AI (Adobe Illustrator) File. Download the file directly to a USB or upload it from your computer to a USB.

STEP 3: FORMATTING YOUR IMAGE TO PRINT

a). Locate the image that you wish to put on your plaque to serve as the "album" cover and open it in Adobe Illustrator. Size and crop your image to your liking - you probably want it to be cropped into a square to mimic the original Spotify design.

b). Follow the how to make a sticker tutorial to download and print out your sticker to put onto your plaque. If you are printing out a square image you do not need to add the pink Roland cutline stroke, instead, you will select Cut Image Boundaries under Cut Controls within the VeraWorks software when printing (ask a staff member to double check your settings)

STEP 4: LASER CUTTING

Finally, follow the First Cut guide to cut and engrave your plaque. Make sure to use the DCI Lab's preset for acrylic engraving settings. Please ask the staff if you have any questions. After successfully cutting out your plaque, put your sticker from Step 2 onto the surface of the plaque. You're all done!