After I spotted preview images of TI’s Paper Trail album cover a couple months ago on the web, I immediately put it down in my book as one of the best hip-hop album covers of the year. In fact, with a little over 2 months left in ‘08, and still without any contenders in sight, it might be the best cover of the year (oh, you think otherwise? drop your picks in the comments.).

However, when I first blogged about the cover here, the one thing that drove me crazy is that I couldn’t find a single drop of info on the artist behind it. Nothing. Nada. Not even a small clue on the websites of Atlantic Records and Grand Hustle Entertainment. But now, thanks to tips from a few awesome Gureala readers, I now have a name and website to put with the work: Ian Wright.

What’s even cooler, is that while looking through Ian’s portfolio (which includes more dope mosaic style projects) another question was answered: the cover isn’t a vector image as I initially suspected. Nope. The shreds of money, notebook paper, envelopes, newspaper and receipts that make up TI’s portrait are 100% real:

Amazing!

(images via Ian Wright)

It’s the cover of T.I.’s upcoming album, Paper Trail, and in my humble opionion, it just might be one of the best album covers that I’ve seen from a hip hop artist all year. The execution is dope, and the concept behind it is pretty clever, I think:

The illustration for Paper Trail pays an obvious homage to my rekindled affinity for writing my lyrics down as well as displays my commitment to keep my art slanted towards the abstract. [MTV]

On first glance, I actually thought the cover may have been partly inspired by the legal troubles that T.I. experienced earlier in the year: scatterd paper, maybe legal docs…the Feds trying to piece together a case against him…him later beating the case and rising from it all to restart his career. Ha! Looks like I was way off. Either way, it’s great to see him take a step away from normal hip hop album cover trends (you know the formula: studio photography, thugged out imagery, simple logo placement), and go with something a little more conceptual and abstract. Props!

In the meantime, I’ve been searching for info on the designer who’s responsible for this. No clues on the Grand Hustle (T.I.’s label) website, or anywhere else on the web for that matter (at least not yet). If you happen to know who she/he is, please drop a line in the comments or shoot me an email!