Meet Brandon Breaux, The Man Who Designs Chance The Rapper’s Album Covers


100,000 people per day are expected to pack into Grant Park in August for this year’s Lollapalooza. As veterans of the star-packed megafest know, Lolla is a four-day grind where the two main stages are set literally a mile apart. The trek is worth it of course to catch the likes of Arcade Fire, Lorde, Lil Yachty, and hometown hero Chance The Rapper live and in person, but the massive amounts of walking involved will almost certainly leave you very thirsty. I cannot stress enough how important it is to drink water, but you should also want to have a good time too and that might mean an adult beverage or two.

When you reach for a cold Bud Light this year from one of the many concession stands, you might notice something different about that familiar blue bottle. Wrapped around the 16-ounces of aluminum is a vibrant tapestry that pays homage to the Windy City. Each major sports team, the Bulls, Cubs, White Sox and Blackhawks are well represented. So is the mighty Chicago hot dog — best in the world — as well as some of the more iconic building in the city’s skyline. For this creative design, you can thank one if Chicago’s brightest young artists, Brandon Breaux.

You might not recognize his name, but, if you’re a hip-hop head anyway, you almost certainly have seen his work. Breaux was the visionary who put together all three of Chance The Rapper’s mixtape covers, beginning with 10 Day, Acid Rap, right up to his latest Grammy-Award winning effort Coloring Book. Talking to him on a gorgeous Chicago afternoon at a party celebrating his work, Breaux opened up about his artist background, his work with Chance and where he hopes to take his skills next.


How did you get involved in art and when did you first start painting?

I started getting involved in art at a very young age, drawing at first. I drew a lot. It was a talent that my father had and a lot of other people in the family had. After a while it was time to take this a step further, like, ‘Alright, let’s see about enrolling you into an art school.’ I took a bunch of courses at the Art Institute of Chicago when I was younger; early college program. It was great because I was interested in visuals and I was interested in creating things, but what that did was gave me the language around what that meant.

What were some of your early inspirations?

He-Man. I’m dating myself when I say that. Ninja Turtles was really my jam. SilverHawks. Thundercats. Stuff like that. Then I started getting into comic books when the comic book boom happened in the ‘90s. ’92 and ’93 was the first years of my collection. Started getting into X-Men and Spider-Man. Then because of that I got into Spawn. Wasn’t into DC so much. I was a Marvel fan.

What is your medium of choice? How do you like to create?

Initially my medium was drawing, right? Because that’s really all you have. I was really intimidated by painting and other things, so when I went to school to study graphic design, I got a good a hold on other tools and got the value of digitizing art work as far as replicating the design, blowing it up scale-wise. In Illustrator I clung to early in my designs. A lot of it is hand-drawn, then I trace it in Illustrator and take it from there.


How did you meet Chance and start designing his album covers?

It came up random. Couple of guys I worked with at a summer job while we were teenagers were producing for Pharrell, like, working with him in Neptunes. They were two twins from Chicago. Christian Rich is the name of the group. They did some stuff for Donald Glover recently, Earl Sweatshirt; they’re great. I was working for the Taste of Chicago for Michael Jordan’s restaurant which is how I met one of them. Years later, they ended up seeing some of my work and he called me up. I’ll never forget it, I was on lunch break and he said, ‘I saw some of your characters and art work, I want you to do an album cover for us.’ For me, it was like, ‘Wait a minute, that’s kind of personal,’ but I did it. It took eight days to do it, I took my time and I did it right. That cover [for The Decadence] did a lot for me because Pharrell re-blogged it, and it ended up on the Internet in a lot of different places. I didn’t understand the impact it would have. It started coming up in conversations before I would. At that point, I realized I was doing something important that means something to people.

How did you begin working with Chance The Rapper?

The reason that Chance’s manager reached out to me was because of that album cover. He called me one day and was like, ‘I wanna know if you’ll do this kid’s cover? I’ve seen your work. I really like that Christian Rich cover. It’s one of my favorite covers of all-time.’ I was really appreciative and had heard of Chance’s work before, so when he reached out to me I already knew, yeah, I would do it because I liked it. It was fresh.

There’s a theory out there about Chance’s three projects about the album covers that they kind of tell the story of his growth as an artist and a person. 10 Day he’s kind of looking up in awe; Acid Rap he’s looking out. Then on Coloring Book he’s looking down. Can you elaborate on the thematic link between those three covers?

I think some things in life and art and creativity you can’t plan. Pieces are bound to fall into place. It’s a combination of something we didn’t plan at all and something that we did and were very intentional about. In the beginning, I didn’t know that there’d be a second cover or that there would be a third, but it did end up becoming a true reflection of his growth, and his growth showed maturity from like an adolescent to a father. Naturally, the artwork captured that. It conveys a lot of those things and it translates to a lot of people in several ways because they see the development. You don’t even necessarily have to listen to the music, but even when you do that, you see it even more.

How much input does he have during the creation process? What does he tell you about what he wants from a cover?

In the beginning, he was young and I had credible work in the field, so I had a little bit of leverage. I was like, ‘This is what I’m gonna do!’ [Laughs] He was into the idea, so, okay, cool. It helped him grow into his brand too. It started branding his face, his personality, the character of Chance The Rapper, because it wasn’t just a photo. It was a figure. A comic book character or something like that. A superhero. Like, the first and second one I just did because he didn’t have anything and he needed something. I was just like, ‘Let’s follow what we did for the first one. Let’s do this and upgrade it.’ Then the third, he had a very clear direction about what he wanted to do. My job at that point is to complete the picture. My suggestions were really as simple as color. Sunset, I feel, is the most beautiful that the sky is. Let’s do something that’s golden and red. Those oranges you see. He already knew he wanted to be wearing blue and the background to be sort of red, because he wanted to reverse what he did with the 10 Day cover where he was wearing red and the sky was blue.

Wow, that’s a pretty incredible attention to detail.

Yeah, and everything is on the table now. He didn’t expect the art to impact people like it did. I didn’t either, and I think that’s the point. When you create visuals, you want it to do that, like the [Bud Light] bottle. That color is attractive. People gravitate toward it. I had no idea it would be so effective or that the music would be so great and that he would propel so way beyond. I’m so happy to have my work associated with him.


Let’s talk about this collaboration with Bud Light. How did that come about?

I was in Hawaii and Bud Light called me about it. It started out as a group idea, but hadn’t been figured out yet. I didn’t know what to expect. I had so many ideas in my mind. I had this thought that it was gonna be easy, ‘I’m just gonna knock this out,’ but it was difficult! I did a lot of drawings and a lot of sketches of my depiction of the city and kept slimming down until I had the central parts. Tried to hit those chords you know? The Chicago dog, the stars, Lollapalooza; you know really tried to nail those things.

What do you want people to feel about the city of Chicago when they look at this bottle? How much of your vision of the city is represented?

A lot of this project was more about, ‘What is everybody’s Chicago?’ What’s approachable to all of Chicago? I took myself out of the equation. It was really about that. Thinking beyond.

Was the hot dog always on it?

Yeah. The Christian Rich cover was a bunch of characters on that album cover, so I’ve been doing these characters for a while. Any way to incorporate them, I try to slide them in there you know? He doesn’t have his features, like his facial features — it’s a legal thing, but people still get it. It’s a hot dog, he’s got arms. Got it!

Have you been doing any more album artwork lately?

I’m working on something right now with a friend of mine, Rocky Fresh. We’re developing some things. He’s an artist that I regret not working with in the past. That for right now, but that’s all.

How stoked are you to see 100,000 people with this bottle in their hands at Lollapalooza?

I can’t wait. It’s gonna be cool.

Check out more of Brandon’s work here, and if you’re at Lollapalooza this year, keep your eyes peeled for one of his beer can designs.

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