Tuff City Records
Record Design, Layout and Product Design
The Tuff City Records Vinyls showcases a range of album covers created to honor and preserve the legacy of American funk, soul, and hip hop.
As lead designer, I developed visual systems for multiple record releases, managing layout, typography, and product design while working directly with the label’s founder. This role also included mentoring incoming interns and ensuring consistency across print production.
Each project was designed to reflect the unique cultural context of the music it represented, balancing archival references with fresh, modern visual language.
Funky Funky New Orleans 7
This album cover for Funky Funky New Orleans 7 draws visual inspiration from the raw textures and soulful rhythm of 1970s America. Designed for a compilation of rare and unreleased tracks, the cover features archival photography layered with bold, gradient typography that reflects the energy and improvisation of the genre.
The layout was designed to echo the experience of crate-digging (gritty, warm, and nostalgic) while remaining clean and readable for contemporary audiences. This piece is part of a broader approach to product design that embraces historical narrative as a central part of the visual identity.
Hip Hop's 50th Anthology Series
The Hip Hop 50th Anthology celebrates five decades of hip hop culture through a unified series of album covers. Each edition—spotlighting solo MCs, female MCs, DJs, and hip hop crews—features a blend of vintage photography with bold color blocking and hand-built typography.
The layout references the structure of educational music anthologies, using design as a way to educate, honor, and engage. The CEO and I worked together so that the project reflects a systems-based approach to design, ensuring each volume could stand alone while contributing to a larger storytelling arc across the series.
