Visualizing Sound: The Art of Thorb
A series of fully hand-drawn, minimalistic album covers created for Thorb. Each design captures the tone and emotion of the music through simplicity, clean composition, and expressive line work. The visuals were developed to reflect the artist’s evolving sound while maintaining a cohesive and recognizable aesthetic across releases.
Role: Freelance Graphic Designer
Tools: Photoshop, Spotify
Timeline: Jul 2021 – Jun 2023
Type: Album Artwork Design / Visual Identity
Fully hand-drawn illustration for Thorb’s single ‘Wave,’ depicting a minimalistic figure on a surfboard. Part of a cohesive series of album covers, each designed with a consistent minimalistic style and border. Song titles were intentionally omitted for a clean, unified visual identity, complementing the overall aesthetic of the project.
The single has amassed 244,025 plays.
Created quick, minimalistic hand-drawn covers for Thorb’s freestyles, including this Star Wars-themed track, enabling timely social media posts while topics were trending. This TikTok received 53.9K views. The same system was used for freestyles covering events and pop culture moments like Patrick Mahomes, NFL, Christmas, Marvel, Mortal Kombat, Kyrgios, NBA, MLB, Squid Games, and Halloween, ensuring a consistent and appealing visual identity across all releases.
Fully hand-drawn illustration for Thorb’s single ‘Live From Arizona,’ featuring iconic Arizona rock formations and a blue cactus representing where the artist, Futuristic, currently lives. Part of a consistent minimalistic series of covers, maintaining a cohesive visual identity across all releases.
Fully hand-drawn illustration for Thorb’s single ‘Low,’ depicting a figure rising through five frames that transition from nearly faded to full color. Designed to align with the minimalistic, cohesive style of the artist’s album covers while visually representing the song’s theme of being in a low place and picking yourself back up.
Fully hand-drawn illustration for Thorb’s single ‘POV,’ featuring a man seated in an armchair smoking a cigar against a TV static background. While slightly diverging from the standard minimalistic design, the cover maintains the cohesive aesthetic theme of the series and visually complements the song’s mood.
Fully hand-drawn illustration for Thorb’s single ‘Off the Couch Freestyle,’ depicting a man lying on a couch surrounded by a lamp, table, and shelves filled with objects. Maintains the minimalistic, cohesive style of the artist’s cover series while visually reflecting the song’s relaxed and introspective vibe.
Results & Reflection
Through this project, I learned how restraint can be a powerful storytelling tool. By focusing on minimal forms and hand-drawn details, I translated complex musical emotion into subtle, intentional design. This experience deepened my understanding of how simplicity and texture can shape perception, and how visual identity can evolve naturally alongside an artist’s sound. Collaborating closely with Thorb refined my ability to merge illustration with brand direction, resulting in artwork that feels personal, timeless, and true to the music.