Red Hot Chili Peppers EP
Class
Image II
Year
09/20/2025
This project reimagined the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Dani California” EP album cover through a hands-on, fully illustrated approach. By hand-altering printed photographs using various materials like paint pens, spray paint, and ink, giving the design a raw, tactile quality that mirrors the band’s unpolished, high-energy sound. Drawing inspiration from past RHCP album covers. Emphasizing a red, black, and white color palette, expressive linework, and symbolic imagery to capture the band’s funk-rock identity.
The creative process involved combining photography with illustration to create a bold collage in InDesign. While challenges arose with type legibility on the busy collage, finding a solution was important. Substituting some imagery with less illustrated, spray-painted photos greatly increased legibility. This project revealed how illustration can visually translate music, blending different artistic mediums, just as RHCP blends musical genres to express both the band’s spirit and the artist’s personal creative vision.
