Art Takes the Wrap for Rap

Can you tell a CD by its cover?

Pen & Pixel, a Houston-based graphic design firm largely responsible for projecting hip-hop’s high-gloss visual image, has spent the past six years hollering, “Yes!”

From the cover of Eightball & MJG’s 1995 single, “Space Age Pimpin,” which depicts the duo as rotund astronauts aboard a rocket ship, to the art for Snoop Dogg’s 1998 comeback, “Tha Game Is to Be Sold Not to Be Told,” in which the artist lounges atop a gold throne flanked by Dobermans with gem-encrusted collars, Pen & Pixel has supplied some of the funniest and bestselling graphic identities in record industry history.

Shawn Brauch and his brother Aaron founded Pen & Pixel in September 1992, with only $1,000 capital, one computer and a dining-room table. Since then, the company’s annual growth has exceeded 500% per annum. Shawn, fresh from a West Coast trip to open a satellite office in San Leandro (where Bay Area rappers E-40 and Spice One are also clients) is happy to report the company’s 1998 gross profits are $3.7 million.

“Our clients are treated just like they were getting a custom Mercedes Benz assembled,” Brauch says of a roster that includes No Limit Records (Master P’s phenomenally successful independent rap label), Willie Nelson and the late Selena.

“We have our own way of merging the layers in Photoshop [computer program] to give the graphics that super-charged look,” Brauch explains. The pearlized finish they add to No Limit CDs makes them urban objets d’art--and difficult to bootleg.

On-deck projects include Pixel Music Television, a video program, and “a book of Pen & Pixel artwork, including a magnifying glass, to see all the detail.”