Lego holds a particularly sentimental place in my childhood memories. For many of us, it’s our first taste of creativity and an early opportunity for autonomy over a project, bringing an idea into physicality. Kevin Euerle has taken this beloved pastime to new, extraordinary heights in his Lego reimaginings of album covers.
His Instagram page iconbrick exhibits a plastic utopia far beyond any rumpus room building session from my formative years. I chatted with Kevin recently about his work.
The 23-year-old graphic designer from Northern Virginia recently graduated from Virginia Tech with a degree in Residential Design. While studying, Kevin worked with local musicians to create album cover art. It was a side project he fell in love with while grappling with its instability as a career path. But with a deep love for the Danish toy production company Lego and the skillset to match, iconbrick was born.
What started off as a portfolio intended for professional pursuits quickly erupted into a dedicated online community. With over 50,000 IG followers after just a few short months, iconbrick’s devoted fan base now eagerly request their favourite artist to be next in the firing line.
Kevin has created a visual sub-culture where reality transforms into fiction.
Before delving into the production process with Kevin, I envisioned a miniature studio with lights and props to scale. Alas, there is no actual Lego involved. “It’s all digital (but I wish they were all real Lego). I choose to keep it all digital mostly because it gives me full control of every single part of the piece.”
As a digital craftsman, Kevin utilises various online libraries of 3D-modelled Lego pieces, including Lego Digital Designer, Mecabricks, and Stud.io. “If I can’t find a piece, I model it myself, and I’m beginning to slowly build a collection of my own proprietary 3D-modelled bricks. Most of my textures are made in Photoshop, and all the lighting and rendering is done in Blender.”
What initially drew me to Kevin’s work was the contrast between simplicity and complexity. At first glance, the images have a child-like appeal, but the more you engage with the work, the more you uncover its incredible depth and production value. “It creates this tension that you can really feel, and that’s the nature of the medium….all this tension in each image is what makes the viewer’s response so powerful.”
Scrolling through iconbrick, the common denominator is contemporary Rap and R&B. It’s a reflection of Kevin’s personal taste in music and creative exploration of impactful albums in his life. By combining the innocence of Lego with the explicit counterculture of Rap music, Kevin suspends his audience in an unconventional collision of two worlds.
“Rap is such a beautiful genre to me because a song that is nothing more than vulgarity and darkness to some can be hope and beauty to those willing to listen. It gatekeeps itself. It draws in people that are willing to look deeper than what’s on the surface.”
Amongst the plethora of imagery bombarding daily, iconbrick stands out. Kevin’s reimaginings encourage us to do the same–to see the world a little differently. It reminds us to diverge from the norm and create rather than only consume.
“People don’t dream like that when they grow up, and I think the world would be a better place if they did.”