Houston-based graphics design agency Pen & Pixel rose within the mid-’90s because the masterminds behind among the most legendary album Southern rap album covers. Based by two brothers, Aaron and Shawn Brauch, Pen & Pixel started because the in-house design agency for No Restrict Information and at its peak, produced art work for Money Cash, Grasp P, Snoop Dogg, and Lil Wayne, amongst others.
One of many final designs Shawn Brauch made was for Birdman’s debut studio album cowl, which was launched on November 26, 2002, through Money Cash Information.
Brauch explains the rise, fall, and legacy of Pen & Pixel, in addition to working with Birdman f.ok.a. Child on the quilt itself.
Shawn Baruch: Pen & Pixel began after my brother and I had been working at Rap-A-Lot Information in Houston. My brother was common supervisor there, and the corporate was doing really very, very properly—hit a few Platinums with the Geto Boys, they usually began to wish to deliver every little thing in-house. At the moment, they had been doing their album covers outdoors.
They had been bringing in freelance artists and my brother knew I used to be a graphic designer and was like, “Hey! Would you like to come out here and give this a shot and do some storyboards for some music videos?” I used to be like, “Sure! Why not?”
The primary album covers
I knew nothing of any of that, however it’s all the time been a dream of mine to do album covers. I flew out to Houston and began working there. One factor results in the following… I used to be doing every little thing by hand after I first acquired there. We did the photoshoot, after which we might sit there and lower out the pictures and do photograph montages with shade pencils, pictures, and sandpaper… we’d really sand down the perimeters. We might really do these photograph montages by hand. We’d lower out the photographs, sand down the perimeters of the photographs, after which spray adhesive on them – and stick them down and make these photograph montages.
At the moment, computer systems had been virtually remarkable. I feel Photoshop had solely been out for perhaps a yr at the moment? So I chatted with J Prince, and I used to be like, “Hey, this might be the way to go since we’re doing so many album covers. It might be kinda smart to put in our own production department…”
We regarded on the figures and went over it… you’re working 40 to 50 album covers a yr, so now it’s value making the funding. I acquired that first system [in-house production department] put into Rap-A-Lot Information and did an entire bunch of studying on that.
Rap-A-Lot was within the enterprise of clearly signing as many acts as they presumably might. These artists would are available, and one of many advantages of signing with them was that the album cowl was gonna be wanting in contrast to some other album cowl on the market as a result of we had the capabilities at the moment of beginning to make it look fairly excellent.
They had been like, “Well, we don’t want to sign with Rap-A-Lot, but we’d like to get the artwork done.” That began my brother and I considering, “What if we set up almost a completely different division of Rap-A-Lot – like an art division?” We might do the art work and Rap-A-Lot would clearly receives a commission, however my brother and I might receives a commission a separate price as a result of we’re those placing in all of the vitality and administration into this. We offered that [a different division of Rap-A-Lot] to Little J and he regarded over it, and we simply couldn’t come to an settlement. He wished extra money than it might’ve been possible for us to truly do that.
Going unbiased
My brother took a have a look at that and mentioned, “Well, how much does the equipment cost?” We went out, ran by a marketing strategy, after which my brother purchased the entire tools – principally equivalent to what Rap-A-Lot had – and we set it up in our condo and that was the start.
I feel we’re really doing extra covers on the very starting than what lots of people perceive, and one of many issues that gave Pen & Pixel its momentum was that we had some accounts like Houston Information and Choose-O-Hit; these are corporations like CD Child that might simply generate 30, 40, or 50 album covers a day as a result of they had been the tremendous fundamental ones you already know.
Issues began selecting up… they usually actually picked up with Suave Home. Tony Draper was the one who actually put us on the map with 8Ball and MJG. That was such an extremely maverick album as a result of no one had ever seen something prefer it. As soon as he broke out with that everyone began coming our approach.
The Money Cash Information connection
We had been nonetheless figuring out of our condo at the moment. Fairly actually dwelling and figuring out of the condo with a full workers – we had workers of 10 individuals figuring out of our condo. The condo acquired too small. We moved into this home – perhaps a mile down the highway – and the entire home was utterly consumed with the enterprise. We began doing enterprise with Huge Boy Information out in New Orleans, and their direct competitor was Money Cash Information. We began producing issues like Black Menace, The Ghetto Twiinz, J Dawg, and an entire bunch of different wild and loopy acts. Brian [Birdman] and Ronald Williams [Slim] noticed that, they usually had been like, “Woah! That is some dope shit.”
They had been like, principally, “Where’d you get that? Since we’re your competitors, we want stuff that looks like that too.” The subsequent factor you already know, this large entourage exhibits up in our parking zone.
The significance of distribution
It wasn’t simply the art work that Pen & Pixel was promoting. That’s the opposite facet that individuals don’t perceive about Pen & Pixel is how a lot of the enterprise recommendation and what number of offers acquired attached below Pen & Pixel’s roof… main offers like Virgin Information, Epic Information, and Precedence Information offers locked up and attached below our roof.
When Brian and Ronald got here in, they wished to speak not simply to me, however they wished to speak to my brother as a result of my brother had the distribution community. They had been like, “Okay, so if we’re gonna make a go at this, we need to have big-time distribution.”
That was carried out by Southwest Wholesale with Robert Gillerman, and my brother and Robert Gillerman had been like brothers. My brother would work these offers, and people offers included: you get your art work carried out right here, we maintain your manufacturing, we generate posters, we offer you all of the instruments to make a go of it, and we’ll hook you up with distribution. Finally in a while, we even acquired into establishing concert events, dealing with safety and accommodations and limousines.
It was that kind of service and providing that was so engaging to those teams. They knew that in the event that they had been loyal to us, we had been all the time loyal them – and that finally these offers would hook up the place they’d get these large distribution offers with these large file offers. The file corporations knew that the art work was going to be of a constant high quality, the product was going to be delivered on time, they usually [the record companies] had been all the time going to get what they wanted to make a go of it. That’s actually one of many large catalysts that allowed Pen & Pixel to only blow up.
We confirmed Money Cash what we will do artwork-wise, they usually’re like, “We gonna be back in about a week.” And certain sufficient, they confirmed again up in every week, they usually had 4 of their acts with them. Our relationship with Suave Home was very tight, and now with Money Cash it was actually tight. They got here to us right through till principally that final Birdman cowl. That was principally the final one.
[Cash Money Records] had signed one other take care of one other file firm at the moment. Pen & Pixel was additionally beginning to shut down. We had modified a variety of our type to what we name the “Millennial Style,” which is what you see with the Birdman cowl. We had gotten away from the “bling-bling” factor as a result of individuals had been saying, “The ‘bling-bling’ thing is so played out man. We wanna look like a movie poster.”
The Birdman album cowl
[Birdman] is a very dependable consumer. He would name me to fly out to New Orleans and he would maintain [the] limousine – the entire thing – to go to his resort room to do a photoshoot. I’d deliver my entire studio with me – together with an assistant – we’d arrange in his resort suite, we’d shoot the shot that we wanted, after which we’d take off and return and produce the album cowl.
On the Birdman cowl, it was two shot course of, which is uncommon for Brian. He’s completely organized. He had every little thing able to rock, able to roll. That is on the home the place he brings most of homies to. He has one other mansion like Grasp P does that he doesn’t deliver anybody to. It’s only for him and his household. It pulls me as much as this home, and this home is like 7000 to 8000 sq. ft. There’s in all probability 50 or 60 guys in there. There’s a jacuzzi in the course of the lounge. He’s like, “I need you to shoot this piece of jewelry.” I used to be like, “You called me out here for a photoshoot of a jewelry piece?” He’s like, “Yeah, I can’t let this go because it was like $400,000 or something like that.”
In order that’s the place the {photograph} of that hen that you simply see on the Birdman album. Then he flew me out once more, and I shot simply his face. Then I instructed him, “Well, I’m gonna incorporate this eagle into your thing, and it’s gonna be kind of a dark-looking cover.” Then I began simply producing the remainder of the items, threw that collectively, despatched it out, and he was like, “Yeah, I want it to be called No. 1 Stunna!” I used to be like “Oh! Alright, alright,” not realizing what a stunna was.
We did some t-shirts, art work of that, another poster stuff, and that was the final cowl I did for them [Cash Money Records]. I distinctly keep in mind that was the final cowl that we did. I thought it was really one in all my extra inventive ones. I additionally did one other one which was very comparable… similar to that one for Level Clean referred to as The Bull the place you may have that homogenous half-animal half-human kind factor. I liked the colours, and I preferred that darkish mysterious factor. I like that sinister kind of look.
Editor’s word: This text was initially revealed in 2017.
