The contest began on July 18 at http://designme.janetjackson.com. Visitors to that website can choose from 33 images of Janet from which they can create their own album cover. From the submissions, 16 will be chosen as semifinalists. From those 16 entries Jackson herself will select four winners whose covers will be used for the first one million copies of 20 Years Old.

Janet and her longtime boyfriend, Jermaine Dupri created the contest. Janet explained, “We were going on the website and looking at all this creative stuff the kids were doing, and it amazed us. They were taking old pictures and they were just very creative with all the designs. We said, 'Let's have these kids design our album cover.'"