Virgil Abloh explained the intent behind his Pop Smoke album cover for “Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon.”
Everybody is excited to dive into the posthumous album by Pop Smoke, which will finally be released at the end of this week. However, not all of the late Brooklyn artist’s fans were pleased with the cover artwork that Virgil Abloh put together for it. In fact, almost nobody was.
Steven Victor, Pop Smoke‘s manager, has announced that the controversial artwork will be changed before the release. Virgil, the head designer for Louis Vuitton and the creator of Off-White, initially explained his inspiration behind the design before people started trashing it. It appears as though he had good intentions.
“The last conversation I had with @realpopsmoke was about what we were gonna do in the future. This album cover was one of like 5 things we talked about,” said Virgil. “He mentioned his story felt like the metaphor of a rose & thorns growing from the concrete of his hood in Canarsie, Brooklyn. In your memory, I just finished it yesterday.”
People have criticized the fashion designer for his “lazy” and “disrespectful” design. While it looks like not much effort was put into the actual execution of the cover, there was a thought-out idea that Pop brought to the table prior to his passing.
We’ll keep you posted on what Steven Victor and Pop Smoke’s team choose as the final design.