Ever since Kendrick Lamar’s unorthodox album cover for DAMN. was revealed, the internet has had its fun offering commentary on everything from its font to the rapper’s face. Naturally, memes were made.

But if you let the man behind the artwork explain it, the decisions to make it appear abrasive, and as if it forwent all the rules of design, were intentional.

Graphic designer Vlad Sepetov, who also worked on K.Dot’s To Pimp a Butterfly cover, took to Twitter to weigh in on the image that got the internet talking.

“Already seeing a lot of discussion about the cover. And I’m really excited about it. It’s interesting to see people talk about ‘bad’ design, but I’m incredibly proud of this cover. I sort of bucked a lot of what my teachers taught me. I wanted to make something loud and abrasive, and maybe some won’t see that, but I’m glad that [President of TDE] Dave [Free] and [K.]Dot saw the value in making something that didn’t fit the mold. Just given the bare bones, we fleshed something out that has a lot of people talking. It’s not uber political like [‘To Pimp a Butterfly’] but it has energy [in my opinion]. We wanted to make the [Parental Advisory] logo part of the design not an afterthought. Why make it small? Let’s make it huge and embrace it. DAMN.”

Can’t wait to see the booklet’s pages.