Taking the maximalist appeal of hip-hop artwork and paring it down into something far more minimal and, in many ways, more impactful, the music producer has taken on the role of a graphic designer. The two aren’t mutually exclusive though, with the creative approach for one influencing how one would go about doing the other. At the end of the day, both are processes that involve turning certain bits of information into something else entirely. 

The album covers may not be completely different to their original counterparts, but many are altered to such rudimentary elements that they’re almost unrecognisable. In the same way as ‘minimalist movie posters’ became one of the internet’s favourite things some years ago, it seems only a matter of time until the same will happen here.

Luckily then for Lucky, that they’re on the crest of the wave, in there before anybody else, a back catalogue of fascinating design choices already established. What to include from the original? What to omit? It's these questions that have defined this graphic designer's style.

Turning some fairly complex images into ones far simpler often amounts to something much more impactful. Our brains are capable of filling in a lot of blanks and that is what we can do here. With the limited information that we have, we can construct our own stories, fill in the background noise and render the details as we see fit.

The images are presented in a way where we see Lucky Carter’s rendering and then we swipe to see the original by its side. It’s an effective system whereby I often found myself actually preferring the more minimal version. Personal taste aside, the artist has developed a unique style that is now featured on artist’s covers as original artworks. I can't imagine it's long until we see many more original covers on the page. 

Whilst it might sound strange to say, the remixes almost are original. So much has changed that, the artist's canvas already painted, it takes so much imagination to recapture something in this way that the original is more source material used as inspiration than just something that has been copied.

Lucky Carter’s covers stand out the most when they’re the least recognisable from the original - when you know roughly what you’re looking at, but it takes a second or two to get there. It’s in that space, where we are left to wonder for a few seconds, that the powerful ability of a remixed, or at least reimagined, cover best comes through.