Artist profile: Edel Rodriguez

Graphic designers, especially those just starting, look up to experienced artists for advice and inspiration. In today’s Artist Profile, we'll take a look at Edel Rodriguez—a gifted artist with over a decade of experience. 

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Edel Rodriguez has shown himself to be a versatile and imaginative artist from his early work creating political posters to his more recent commercial illustrations. In this article, we'll explore the humble beginnings that have made him one of the most respected graphic designers in the business.

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Edel Rodriguez is a Cuban-American artist, illustrator, and children's book author born on August 22, 1971, in Havana, Cuba. His art extends from conceptual to portraiture and landscape, and he uses various materials. His art is informed by facets of his life such as socialist propaganda and western advertising, island culture, and contemporary metropolitan life.

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Humble Beginnings

Edel Rodriguez and his family arrived in the United States in 1980 as part of the Mariel boatlift, which brought thousands of Cubans to the United States. His family landed in Key West with very little to begin a new life with, as the Cuban government had taken ownership of the family's home, car, furniture, and clothes. Edel's father started a trucking company in Miami, so the family moved and lived with relatives there. 

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Within a few years of being in the United States, Edel had learned the language to the point where he even won the National Spelling Bee. Rodriguez attended Hialeah-Miami Lakes High School and graduated in 1990.

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Education

After graduating from high school, Edel went to Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Rodriguez interned at Spy magazine, MTV, and Penguin Books while at Pratt. After graduating with honors from Pratt and obtaining a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in painting on a full scholarship, he went on to get a Masters in Fine Arts (MFA) from Hunter College in 1998. His art extends from conceptual to portraiture and landscape, using various materials.

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Career & Achievements

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Edel Rodriguez started working as an art director for Time magazine in 1994. He was the youngest art director ever to work on Time's Canadian and Latin American editions at 26. He kept this post until 2008, when he focused solely on art and commercial illustration. Edel produced a substantial amount of illustration work while at Time, most of which was completed in the evenings.

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Edel has worked with a range of artistic mediums throughout his career, including painting, printmaking, pastel, line drawing, and digital manipulation.

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Magazines such as The New Yorker, Time, Rolling Stone, Fortune, and others have published Edel's masterpieces. Corporate companies such as MTV, Pepsi Inc, and others have also utilised Rodriguez's work. His work also appears on The New York Times' Op-Ed page regularly and the U.S Postal Service released the Cha-Cha Stamp he illustrated in 2005.

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Edel Rodriguez's art has appeared on the covers of Communication Arts twice and Print's New Visual Artists Annual twice. It's regularly been included in American Illustration, Society of Publication Designers, and Society of Illustrators Annuals. The Society of Illustrators has awarded him two Gold and three Silver Medals and a bronze Cube from The Art Director's Club in New York City. He has illustrated seven children's books and authored two of them.

Conclusion

Edel Rodriguez is an inspiration to aspiring artists everywhere. He has achieved great things in his career, and his work is both beautiful and thought-provoking. If you're looking for inspiration, look no further than Edel’s work online. 

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But don't stop there. With a free DIY graphic design tool like Dzyn Space, you can start creating your own designs today. This easy-to-use tool makes it simple for anyone to create stunning graphics that will grab attention and help promote their business. You don’t need any graphic design skills or knowledge, especially since you can choose from hundreds of our templates to create your design projects. 

Start your design career and make a handsome living doing it too. Sign up for a free Dzyn Space account and start designing today.