Pen & Pixel

Pen & Pixel Graphics, Inc was a Houston, Texas-based graphics design firm that specialized in musical album covers, especially for gangsta rap artists in the Southern United States. For a long time it was the house design firm for the No Limit Records, Cash Money Records and Suave House Records. The company was started in 1992 by brothers Aaron and Shawn Brauch. The Brauch brothers and their staff worked with over 8,000 clients and completed 19,180[1] album covers before the company closed its doors in 2003.[2] The brothers cited peer-to-peer file sharing website Napster and the September 11 attacks as reasons for the close; artists were reluctant to fly to Houston to view artwork listeners would be unlikely to see.[3][4]

Cover of Big Bear's 1998 album Doin Thangs

The album covers Pen & Pixel produced have been described as "Gaudy"[3] and "Outrageous".[5] Common themes included bullets, cars, drugs, fire, gems, money, women, and other examples of wealth and riches.[3][4] Pen & Pixel would fulfill client requests for custom album covers, with sketches of the album cover being drawn based on the concepts requested. These sketches would then be scanned by a computer, which would generate a list of items needed for the cover, such as cars and diamonds. Photos would then be taken of these items from different angles, so the same item could be reused in the future.[1] Pen & Pixel apparently refused to produce possibly political covers.[6][7]


References
  1. Noisey. "Defining the Visual Style of Southern Hip Hop - Noisey Design (Episode 1)". Youtube. Vice Media. Retrieved 18 February 2020.
  2. Julie, Grob. "Special Collections- Librarian". www.uh.edu/. University of Houston. Retrieved 20 April 2019.
  3. Mebane, William. "Letter of Recommendation: Pen & Pixel". nytimes. A. G. Sulzberger. Retrieved 17 February 2020.
  4. Kakaire, Christine. "Strictly abiding by a "more-is-more" philosophy, the Brauch brothers shaped the visual aesthetic of Southern hip-hop's flashiest era". RedBullmusicacademy. Retrieved 18 February 2020.
  5. Howard, Jacinta. "THE BEST PEN & PIXEL RAP COVERS". theboombox. Retrieved 17 February 2020.
  6. Friedman, Skinny. "An Ode to Pen & Pixel Album Covers". Vice. Vice media. Retrieved 17 February 2020.
  7. Jenkins, Sacha; Wilson, Elliot; Mao, Jeff; Alvarez, Gabe; Rollins, Brent (March 25, 2014). Ego Trip's Book of Rap Lists. St. Martin's Publishing Group. p. 169. ISBN 1466866977. Retrieved 17 February 2020.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.