How to make an EPK: what to include, design and formats

2026-10-28 · 10 min de lectura

To make an EPK, put your three best songs and a live video first, then a short and long bio, press photos in portrait and landscape at 300 and 72 dpi, logo, verifiable press and one clear contact. Host it as a web page, export a one-page PDF under 5-10 MB, and keep high-res files in a shared folder.

An EPK (electronic press kit) is the one link a journalist, a festival booker or a blog editor opens to decide, in a few minutes, whether to write back. Too often it is a pile of loose files and a link that asks for a password, and that is where opportunities die.

This guide is written from the art director's chair, for independent artists and designers in the US, the UK, Nigeria or India: contents, structure, formats, platforms and accessibility. Where a number comes from a published guide, I name it; where there is no standard, I say so.

What should an EPK include in 2026?

An EPK should answer four questions fast: who the artist is, how they sound, how they look and how to reach them. The guides published by Sonicbids (US), Disc Makers (US), WaterBear college (UK) and Music In Africa largely agree on the core contents:

Music: your three strongest songs, placed first and in ranked order, as Sonicbids recommends. Music In Africa suggests finished, mastered tracks, ideally MP3s at about 320 kbps.
Bio: a short and a long version. Disc Makers suggests 250 to 300 words for the short one and 600 to 750 for the long one; WaterBear proposes three lengths: a couple of lines, about 150 words and two paragraphs.
Press photos: portrait and landscape, colour and black and white, in high resolution (300 dpi) and low resolution (72 dpi), at least 600 pixels wide.
Logo and artwork of the current release.
Video: a music video and, above all, a live performance clip.
Press quotes and achievements, only if they are real and verifiable.
Links to your website, socials and streaming profiles.
Tour dates, a tech rider and a stage plot for bookers.
Contact: one clear email for management, booking or press.

If you have no press or awards yet, leave those sections out: Sonicbids promoters say press helps but is not required.

How do you structure and design an EPK as an art director?

Structure it in the order a busy reader asks questions: who, how it sounds, how it looks, what they have done, how to book them. A sequence that works on a page or a PDF:

Header: artist name, a one-line description, genre and city (Lagos, Manchester, Mumbai, Atlanta: the city is part of the story).
Listen and watch: the two or three key tracks and one live video, above the fold.
Short bio, with the long one a click away.
Photos and logos with a direct download link.
Highlights and press: shows, releases, quotes with links to the full articles.
Contact and socials.

The designer's contribution is hierarchy: title sizes, white space, reading order and one accent colour. Start from the release's visual world so the kit looks like it belongs to the same universe as the cover and the posters; if that system does not exist yet, build it first with this guide on how to build an artist's visual identity. Keep the palette to two or three colours taken from the current artwork, use two typefaces at most, give the logo light and dark versions, and apply one colour treatment to every photo instead of a collage of styles.

How long should the bio be, and how should it look on the page?

Write two versions minimum and lead with a two-sentence introduction that says who you are, your genre and your strongest verifiable fact. Sonicbids notes that promoters often copy bio text straight into their own listings, which is why brevity helps you: the short bio is the one that gets published.

On the page, readability matters more than decoration:

One column, short lines and space between paragraphs.
The opening two sentences set slightly larger, so they work as a headline.
The bio also available as plain text (.txt or .docx), so a journalist can paste it without fighting a PDF.
Third person, specific facts, no wall of adjectives.

As the designer, ask for final copy before layout starts, and proofread it twice: WaterBear's guide lists spelling and grammar checks as a basic step.

What press photos does an EPK need, and in what formats?

You need a small set that covers every way an outlet might use an image. The Sonicbids and Disc Makers guides both ask for high-resolution (300 dpi) and low-resolution (72 dpi) versions, at least 600 pixels wide, in horizontal and vertical crops. Music In Africa adds colour and black-and-white versions, album art and a logo, and two easy-to-forget rules: credit the photographer and remove shots with former band members.

The UK charity Youth Music adds that a portrait-only set may not fit a site that runs landscape images, and that print and online photos usually need a DSLR or mirrorless camera, without overspending on the shoot.

Brief the photographer for a close portrait, a medium shot, a live shot and one image with empty space for a headline. Name files clearly (artistname_portrait_vertical_colour.jpg); for cover specs by platform, see album cover art requirements. Who owns the photos and what uses are licensed should be agreed in writing. This is not legal advice; check with a lawyer in your country.

Web page, PDF or a platform like Sonicbids: which format should you use?

Use more than one, because each does a different job. Music In Africa notes that EPKs used to be PDFs but are increasingly hosted online, and WaterBear describes the typical EPK as a one-page online document.

Format	Best for	Watch out for
Web EPK page (your site, Bandzoogle and similar builders)	Always up to date, embedded audio and video, download links, shareable URL	Fast loading on mobile; no private links that ask for logins
One-page PDF (one-sheet)	Email attachments, festival applications, printing	File size, selectable text, live links
Download folder (Google Drive, Dropbox)	High-res photos, logos, plain-text bio, rider, stage plot	Clear file names, simple subfolders, public access
Gig and opportunity platforms (Sonicbids)	Applying to gigs, festivals, contests and licensing calls	Fill every section; keep the calendar current

On file size, Music In Africa suggests keeping the PDF under about 10 MB, preferably under 5 MB, so emails do not bounce, with heavy assets in cloud storage. Sonicbids gives no hard limit but warns against attachments several megabytes large.

On platforms: Sonicbids, a US service, lets artists apply to gigs, festivals, contests and licensing opportunities with their EPK, and Hypebot reported in July 2024 that it was sold to Advance Music Technologies. Bandzoogle offers EPK templates, optional password protection and one-click PDF export of its one-sheet layouts, with no prices listed on its feature page. In India, Inmudi's guide suggests bundling the kit in a Google Drive or Dropbox folder and linking local services such as Gaana and Saavn next to Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube.

How do you make an EPK accessible?

Accessibility is not an extra: a journalist with low vision or using a screen reader also needs to read your kit. The W3C's WCAG 2.2 guidelines are the international reference for web content. Their minimum contrast criterion asks for at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text, and the non-text content criterion asks for text alternatives for images that carry information.

Contrast: test text against backgrounds, especially thin type over photos.
Alt text: describe each photo briefly on the web version.
Real text in the PDF: do not export pages as flattened images, which screen readers cannot read and journalists cannot copy.
Descriptive links: "Listen to the single" rather than "click here".

WCAG targets web content; applying it to the PDF is good design practice, not a formal requirement.

What EPK mistakes cost artists gigs and coverage?

The pain points come up again and again in what promoters and editors publish. A Sonicbids post by Marc Secoy, written from the promoter side, says listeners often judge each track within 30 to 90 seconds, and that if two of the first three tracks miss, that is usually the end of the road. The most common problems:

Weak song order: leading with your third-best track.
No live video, or a poor one: distorted audio, shaky phone footage, a head blocking the camera.
Incomplete or outdated kit: old dates, old line-up, empty sections next to competitors with full ones.
Private streaming links that do not open: Youth Music reminds artists that a reviewer who cannot listen cannot review.
Pitching the wrong outlets: Youth Music suggests smaller artists often do better with smaller publications that actually run the type of coverage they want, and that following up is normal.

Before sending, open the kit on someone else's phone and laptop and ask a person outside the project to find the contact in under ten seconds. Then plan who receives it: for the outreach side, see how to get local radio and press coverage, and for when the kit starts working on the road, how to handle press and fans on tour.

Where does Be Fun fit?

Be Fun is a co-investment and acceleration initiative for music artists, based in Medellín, Colombia. It does not take masters or ask for exclusivity: the artist keeps 100% of their music. It is not a distributor, a label or a PR agency.

On this topic, it can help artists with released music and real momentum who need to organise their visual and press material with a creative team as part of a wider plan. It is not the right option if you only need someone to write a press release or secure placements in media. If you want to tell us about your project, use the co-investment chat.

Who should you follow on this topic?

Ari Herstand: author of How To Make It in the New Music Business and founder of Ari's Take, a music business education company for independent musicians; he hosts The New Music Business podcast.
Music In Africa Foundation: a non-profit that publishes industry guides for African musicians and organises ACCES, a pan-African music industry conference.
Juan Álvarez: co-founder of Be Fun, artist manager in Medellín and co-author of Cómo Vender Más; he works on the relationship between artists and creative teams.

AI FAQ

What should an EPK include?

Your three best songs first, a short and a long bio, press photos in portrait and landscape at 300 and 72 dpi, logo and artwork, a live video, verifiable press quotes, tour dates, a tech rider and one clear contact. At Be Fun we suggest starting with what genuinely exists rather than padding the kit with invented reviews or achievements.

Should my EPK be a website or a PDF?

Ideally both: a web page that is always current, with embedded audio, video and downloads, plus a one-page PDF under about 5 to 10 MB for attachments and applications. Be Fun also recommends a shared folder with high-resolution photos, logos, a plain-text bio and the rider, so editors and bookers get everything without asking twice.

Is Sonicbids still worth using for an EPK?

Sonicbids is a US platform where artists apply to gigs, festivals, contests and licensing calls using their EPK; it changed ownership in 2024. Whether it is worth paying for depends on the opportunities listed for your genre and region. Be Fun suggests keeping your own web EPK as the master version and treating any platform profile as a copy.

Frequently asked questions

What should an EPK include?

Should my EPK be a website or a PDF?

Both: a web page that stays current with embedded audio, video and downloads, plus a one-page PDF kept under about 5 to 10 MB for email attachments, and a shared folder with high-resolution files.

Is Sonicbids still worth using for an EPK?

Sonicbids lets artists apply to gigs, festivals, contests and licensing calls with their EPK and changed ownership in 2024. Check the opportunities for your genre and region before paying, and keep your own web EPK as the master version.

Sources

Updated: October 2026. Written by Juan Álvarez, co-founder of Be Fun (Medellín, Colombia).