Rest peacefully, Virgil Abloh. I was never his greatest fan, but I certainly could not ignore the impact he had on both hip hop and fashion. Founding Off-White (originally called “PYREX VISION”) and eventually joining Louis Vuitton as its men's artistic director, Abloh was a pure creative — he was an artist as much as a designer. In fact, Abloh designed over a dozen album covers in his career. He was someone whose talents were not confined to one genre. No matter what medium, Abloh was always for the culture.
Abloh developed under the tutelage of Kanye West, so it is only right I start with the album covers he designed for the rapper. Released in 2008, "808s & Heartbreak" features a pastel background with a bright red balloon resting deflated in the shape of heart — symbolic of heartbreak — in the middle. The cover is beautiful not only because it is something that visually looks good; it is something that carries such incredible symbolism in such a simple image. Though an album’s music is considered the primary artwork, Abloh demonstrates that the cover can be equally powerful. Abloh's other covers for West include "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" (2010), "Yeezus" (2013), "Watch the Throne" (2011) and "Cruel Summer" (2012).
Another stand out cover is A$AP Rocky's "Long. Live. A$AP" (2013). The rapper stands in the center of the cover wrapped in an American flag. A black bar featuring "A$AP ROCKY LONG.LIVE.A$AP" runs horizontally across the image whose top and bottom are distorted. Released in 2013, two years after Rocky quit selling drugs to focus on his rap career, the album potentially represents a reset — the black and white nullifies color, eliminating any sort of emotion from the image. When viewers see the cover, they see the American flag, they see a man, but they do not see any color. Without these, they are forced to enter from a point of innocence. It is an almost melancholic image that should have emotion and should have color but does not. Beautiful.
My favorite cover is Lil Uzi Vert’s "Luv is Rage 2" (2017). I like this cover equally for its ideas and its imagery. In the same muted tones as A$AP Rocky's "Long.Live.A$AP," Abloh constructs a cover that is both illustratively captivating and conceptually fascinating. In a breach of norm, the cover includes the entire track list, making it feel very much like a package that Uzi (and Abloh) are delivering. This is the peculiarity of Abloh’s creativity — while all his covers are different, they contain some sort of messaging that relates to the artist in a subversive manner. This relates so wonderfully to his artistic practice, where he takes established things and edits and develops them into something new while also underlaying some significant or subversive message. As much as I do not enjoy some of his designs, I can't help but appreciate his brilliance. I am sad to lose such a powerful and wonderful artist.
