I designed this cd wallet art for a hip hop artist named Scoot- he was looking for a graphic designer that could help him develop an image of himself as a pseudo presidential rapper/politician. His album release comes on the heels of the economic stimulus package that congress passed, and he was playing off of that- as in his album being a stimulus package for the hip hop industry. Needless to say- I gave him the presidential treatment.
I composed the cover design by combining a collection of photo’s including the state capital, crowd, clouds, lights, and textures. These were all seprate elements that I combined to create this scenery. I adjusted the colors to give it all a cohesive look and overlaid a few textures and photoshop effects to bring it all together. I also created the presidential logo for the artist which is underneath the disc and is exposed when the disc is removed. He was very happy with the final design.

This is the cd package design for a DJ mixtape (I know it’s a cd and not a tape- but strangely that’s still the terminology used today). Anyway, the artist dj didn’t have any photo’s he wanted incorporated into the design so he asked me to come up with a character that could represent his music. The mix-tape consists of hip hop music, r&b, rap, etc… The beats are actually quite good- I enjoyed them. He had a bunch of text files he gave to incorporate into the design, such as- the track list, production credits, thank you’s, etc. He just gave them to me in a word file, and I placed them into the design. I also added the copyright info and FBI anti-piracy logo, along with the barcode, this all helps in establishing the professionalism the client wanted to portray in his album release. BLee is a very talented DJ and beat maker- I’m sure he’ll be going place real soon- and hopefully he’ll remember who his graphic designer is.

Above is a cd cover design I composed using various photo’s and design elements. The idea is to convey a “matrix” like feel to the illustrated environment. The left side is a corporate skyscraper and to the right a decrepit ghetto alley.

Above are some photographs I utilized to compose this design.

Fernando Medina, Graphic Design, Illustration, Art, Cover Art, Album Art, CD Art, Aurora, IL Artist, Chicago Artist, Illinois Artist, Graphic Design 60505, Illustrator 60504, Designer, cd design.

This is the cover art for a hip-hop compilation album. The client said they really wanted to accentuate the 2.0 so I dropped it on the cover like giant bricks- can’t get more prominent than that. I grunged up the letters a bit to give them a worn out look- like it’s been through the test of time and it’s still big and bold. I then added the shovel on the side to compliment the words “buried treasure”. I used a little bit of adobe illustrator and photoshop to complete this work. Enjoy.

CD cover illustration design for a hip hop rap artist based in New York. This cd cover illustrates a character representing the rap artist’ persona. A custom cd cover illustration takes considerably longer than a cd design based on the musicians photographs because it requires composeing the cd package design entirely from scratch. I completed the illustration for this star wars/hip hop cd cover. I used adobe illustrator for the color and line work, and added some texture in photoshop. The client was very happy with it. I’ve never really illustrated anything in this particular style- but I’m pretty proud of how it turned out. It’s another notch in my arsenal of styles. Notice the Darth Vador silhouette in the background.

Once upon a time… in a Galaxy far far away, there was an illustrator who dared to combine the forces of Star Wars and Hip hop. This is a fun illustration I’ve been working on. Below is a preliminary pencil sketch for an album cover playing off the theme of Lucas’ Celestial Opera- as you can see he’s reaching for his mic which is his “light saber”, getting ready to slash somebody creeping up behind him- he’s also sporting a jedi cape and in the background a little green dude (Yoda) is rocking the turntables. I’ll be posting the updated artwork soon- stay tuned.

© 2009 Fernando Medina. book illustrator, cd cover design, cd design, cd designer, cd illustration, chicago graphic design, children’s book illustrator, cover design, gangsta rap cd design, graphic designer, hip hop art, Hip Hop Rap CD Design, Illustrator, Rap CD design.