RTJ4

Every Run the Jewels album carries the same emblem: a pointed finger gun and a clenched fist. For RTJ4 the duo made it physical. Photographer and director Tim Saccenti, who had worked with El-P since his second solo album, built the hands as a low poly model and 3D printed them as a glossy sculpture. He then photographed the object under several coloured lights and combined the shots into the final image. Layout and design came from Smartbomb.net, with lettering by Nick Gazin, the illustrator who drew the group's first two covers.

El-P said he wanted to make the logo feel futuristic by going back to "some of the most basic shapes." The faceted surfaces turn a hand-drawn symbol into something that looks machined, like a trophy or a game asset. The coloured lights were a deliberate callback: they echo the colour schemes of the earlier albums, so the fourth cover quietly contains the first three. El-P has described the group's visual side as "sort of an art collective", and the cover shows that process at work, with an illustrator's mark passed to a photographer and rebuilt in plastic.

The pistol and fist had become one of the most recognisable logos in modern rap, and RTJ4 gave it its sleekest form. One writer tracking the series called the low poly version possibly his favourite so far. The duo released the album for free download two days ahead of schedule, on 3 June 2020.