The Creative Directors Behind Your Favorite Music Artists

Image via Complex Original

Artist: John Legend

When you're as smooth a crooner as John Legend, you better have the refined style to back it up. Maybe that's why he enlisted the creative director of Gucci, Frida Giannini, to design an entire tour's worth of wardrobe for the RnB singer. This included bespoke suits—single-breasted, bright-blue suits—and custom-made leather bomber jackets. It was a signature look for Legend's 2013 tour. And not just for the frontman; the entire band was outfitted in the look. Sure, Giannini isn't Legend's creative director outright. But her visual mark on his lasting tour outing is enough to land her on this list.

Artist: Kelly Clarkson, Pitbull, Ke$ha, A$AP Rocky

This dude is one of the best-kept creative secrets behind much of the music RCA Music and Sony have released in the last few years. Gorostiza started out doing art direction for albums in the early '90s: releases by LeShaun, House of Pain, RuPaul, Naughty By Nature, and De La Soul all were helped by his hand. But in the last few years, he's taken on a broader role with artists, helping to define an album's entire concept. He has the creative director credit on albums by Miguel, Ke$ha, Gavin DeGraw, Brandy, and even jazz legend Wynston Marsalis. With such a big bag of tricks up his sleeve, it's pretty evident this dude can do anything.

Artist: Pink, Sade, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift

Baz Halpin is a beast. The production designer and creative director behind mega-monster tours for Pink, Katy Perry, and Taylor Swift. But, since Swift's Red tour opened this March, he's been hard at work on intense new project putting together Britney Spears' new residency at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, "Piece of Me." It's been no easy task. Halpin told Billboard just days ago that he's been working tirelessly for the last four months on the project. "I get into the office at 7 a.m. and probably put down the phone at 11 p.m. It's non-stop every day," he told the magazine. Whatever the award-winning designer brings together, we're sure it'll be fitting of Britney's new demands to "Work Bitch!"

Artist: Beyonce

Jenke-Ahmed Tailly is beyond an it-guy. Stylish, enigmatic, and anywhere that is at the apex of cool, Tailly has been working with and styling Beyonce for about the last four years. He's been known to work intimately not only with the music Beyonce puts out, but with her personal proclivities as well. His ability to listen extends beyond language, to the rhythm of the streets, the catwalks, and the bass drum.

Artist: Justin Bieber

Chu is a somewhat legendary director in the dance and hip-hop worlds, most recently leaving his mark as the creative director behind Justin Bieber's Believe tour. Following in the viral nature of Bieber's career ascent, Chu went as far as auditioning dancers through an online format for Justin's Believe tour, an innovative project that showed that Chu knows what it means to participate in today's digital culture. He also directed the Bieber doc Never Say Never, just one in a huge list of film and television credits he's got on his CV, including as the director of Step Up 2. Called by some "hands down, the most preeminent living dance-off filmmaker," Chu sets a gold standard for getting down.

Artist: Radiohead

Dilly Gent, as funny a name that might be, is a real serious powerhouse in the signature visuals department. For years, she was the major force behind everything that Radiohead put out in the televisual department. Check out the collection of music videos from 1995-1997, "7 Television Commercials"—she was responsible for commissioning the creative teams behind each one. She also produced the film Meeting People Is Easy, and, since OK Computer, Gent has been responsible for getting the collaborative teams behind the band's videos together.

Artist: Mad Decent/Diplo

The work of Paul Devro is as vibrant as it is various. "In my job there is a little bit of everything," he told the online magazine TICT last year. "I find releases, work with the artists, do some art, throw some parties, run the subscription service and have a side label called the Jeffree's." That is to say, as the creative director and main force behind Diplo's Mad Decent label, he's got his hand in many honeypots. Coming from a small-town background and heading toward international influence and stardom, Devro is just further inspiration for all us little people.

Artist: Lil Wayne/Trukfit

Do you really think Lil Wayne—who seems to release a new album or verse just about every fifteen minutes—actually has time to design all the shit he puts out through his TRUKFIT clothing line? That responsibility falls largely to the The Reason You Kill For It's creative director, Mairsa Flores. Before taking the position at TRUKFIT, she was the personal stylist for Weezy, drawing his inspiration from around the streets across the world. Her influence in working with skateboard brands led Wayne to his now-signature style of ultra-skinny fits, hoodies, and wild graphic patterns, a look now common in the rap mainstream.

Artist: Tupac Hologram, Maroon 5, Prince

With a name like Demfis Fyssicopulos (how the hell do you pronounce this?) you'd better deliver an over-the-top product. Fyssicopulos, the designer behind shows for the likes of Prince and Maroon 5, has always pushed boundaries of production and art direction, but with an effortless elegant touch. "I don't like the 'institution' and 'establishment,'" he told PLSN, "I like to be groundbreaking. When someone tells me 'That's how I've been doing this for the past 30 years,' I use it as fuel to do things different. Stagnancy is the enemy." With that sentiment in mind, it makes sense that Fyssicopulos is one of the main forces behind the hologram of Tupac Shakur that appeared at Coachella in 2012—the first in a string of amazing stage setups.

Artist: Daft Punk

When the French dance-music duo Daft Punk returned in the summer of 2013 with their album Random Access Memories, a long-tenured member of their crew helmed all of the album's visual looks (save Hedi Slimane's styling of the robo-duo in the Yves Saint Laurent campaign). That person was Cédric Hervet, a member of the Daft Punk cadre since the early 2000s. He was credited with Random Access Memories's art direction, concept, cover art, and creative direction. This wasn't the first time he's had a heavy hand in the work of Daft Punk. He also worked with the pair on their films Electroma and Interstella 5555. Further, he co-produced the band's third album Human After All.

Artist: Demi Lovato

In the early 2000s, you couldn't find bigger touring pop acts than Britney Spears and N'Sync, and both their tours were choreographed by Wade Robson. Robson, an Australian national, showed a talent for the performing arts at a young age and was fascinated by American pop culture. His talent was so strong and apparent, when he and his mother decided to make the move to the States, he was assisted by none other than the king of pop himself, Michael Jackson. Though he's achieved numerous television and production accomplishments, it's his tether as the creative director behind Demi Lovato that now occupies most of his time.

Artist: Miley Cyrus, Robin Thicke

We knew someone had to be behind the gratuitous performance of Miley Cyrus' and Robin Thicke's mash-up of "We Can't Stop" and "Blurred Lines," at the MTV Video Music Awards earlier this year. And who else to choreograph the lewd collision of these two smash hits into an incredibly over-the-top performance besides the woman behind the videos for them both? That would be Diane Martel, who not only over delivered for the creative direction behind the VMA performance but also said later that the entire thing was misunderstood. "I am shocked by their shock," Martel told MTV. "I think there is other news we should be focusing on ... Syria? Egypt? Not a 20-year-old girl wilding out in a campy rendition of her #1 song and Robin's #1 song. At the heart of this noise, you have a young lady playing with a performance."

Artist: Rihanna

Ciarra Pardo has been with Rihanna since 2007, when the Barbadian emerged into the spotlight. She did art direction on Rihanna's first two albums and was named full-out creative director for RiRi by 2011's "Talk That Talk." Her work for the singer stretches from the 11-foot mechanical bed for the video of "California King Bed," to production design on lives shows, to work on album visuals. Someone only as diverse and talented as Pardo could keep up with Rihanna.

Artist: Rihanna, Alicia Keys

It was quite a transformation when Rihanna went from sunny Barbadian beach bum to all-black "Rude Boy" badass. During the promotions campaign for her album Rated R in late 2009 and 2010, she went from sun-soaked songstress to neo-rock rebel. As Rihanna transformed her image in something more formidable and slick, there was one person who worked closer with RiRi than anyone else on her team. That would be creative director Simon Henwood, who helped mold even the fashion-forward, badass brand of one of the world's biggest pop stars. Rihanna probably could never have made it over the crest of her Good Girl Gone Bad image without Henwood's strategy ,which helped her true brash attitude make the mainstream. His work with a slate of other pop stars, including Alicia Keys, positions him as a dominant creative force.

Artist: Katy Perry, Jennifer Lopez, Selena Gomez, Miguel, etc.

If one man has a vision that embodies the visual focus of major pop stars like J-Lo, Lady Gaga, Paul McCartney, and Katy Perry, that man is Gavin Taylor. His studio is responsible for the covers of some of the biggest-selling albums in recent memory: Carly Rae Jepsen's Kiss, a number of Katy Perry singles (not to mention the cover of her new LP), and a slew of other work. If you're interested in how the design mind of one of the broadest-reaching designers in the business gets it done, Taylor keeps a detailed record of his work and process on his blog.

Artist: Nicki Minaj

Anyone who gets her start as a Fly Girl on In Living Color is all right in our book. That's where Laurieann Gibson, one of Nicki Minaj's creative directors got her start as a dancer before moving on into the worlds of choreography and creative direction. You may recognize her face elsewhere from television, as she was one of Diddy's partners on the MTV show Making The Band. She became the lead choreographer behind Motown Records, and later Bad Boy, before going on to work as Lady Gaga's creative director. They parted ways in 2011 "due to creative differences," according to Gaga, and Gibson began working with Nicki Minaj. Notably, she led creative direction behind the performance of Minaj's "Roman Holiday," at the Grammy Awards in 2012. It was largely considered to be a controversial, if not blasphemous, performance.

Artist: Kanye West

Virgil Abloh consistently ranks higher and higher when we check in on him. In 2012, when he was one of 10 people about to change the style game. Six months later, at the beginning of this year, we named him one of the 25 most powerful people in streetwear. Abloh is an architect by training and the number one person behind Kanye's look as his style and creative director. A member of the #been #trill crew and the creative force behind the PYREX line, Abloh is a creative powerhouse. His advisory role with Kanye is just one facet of that.