A-Phlatt's Mixtape

While working at 747 Productions for my internship, Andre "A-Phlatt" Russel asked if I would be willing to design him an album cover for his upcoming mixtape - Mr. Feature Vol. I, The Double Disc Edition. I said sure, and came up with three variations before settling on this one. The design process was completed within 3 days.

The original image of A-Phlatt himself was not the best quality photo - colors were bland and the image was pretty blurry. After isolating him from the background, I converted it to a black and white image. I applied a light "Dark Strokes" filter in Photoshop to him, which provides a nice high-contrast smoothness without making it any blurrier. I used a gradient overlay to get that blue-pinkish purple color for A-Phlatt, and created a different gradient for the blues in the background. After looking at Lil Wayne's Carter IV album, we decided to use a fancier font (Snell Roundhand) for A-Phlatt's name to contrast with the grungy and bold type everywhere else (Impact font with some grunge brushes overlaid on top).

The city was created with merging several shapes of city skylines together, and is no city in particular as far as I know. I then added the splatter shapes below and merged the two and added a yellow stroke around everything to really make it pop. Using a few other brushes, I added the greens and yellow-red flourishes all around for a more soulful touch, like it is surrounding A-Phlatt (who looks pretty imposing over the city skyline). Overall I think it encompasses classiness and boldness at the same time. That QMG logo is semi-transparent, and is positioned to be kinda at the heart of the city, without interfering with it. I also created matching promotional flyers for the release - which is coming up on December 17th! Check out "She Betty Boopin'" below. (My flyer is at the beginning and end of the slideshow!) The song is pretty damn catchy...