[4] As a children's book illustrator, he has received three Pura Belpré Award medals from the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), and REFORMA in 2020 for Dancing Hands: How Teresa Carreño Played the Piano for President Lincoln,[5] Drum Dream Girl in 2016 and Book Fiesta!

[15] In 2023 he created a Google Doodle celebrating the life of trailblazing Mexican American media pioneer and civil rights activist Raoul A. Cortez who gave a voice and presence to Latinos through radio and television.

[17] In Mexico City, López attended the Manuel Bartolome Cossio, an experimental Freinet school where he began drawing and painting at an early age.

In school he was able to study classical music and also learned to play a variety of folkloric instruments including the quena, guitar and drums taught by members of Los Folkloristas.

As a child, he often visited the flea market with his father looking for used books and the family had a large collection that lined the walls of their home from floor to ceiling.

[21] After college he worked as an illustrator in Los Angeles, and then converted an old car garage in an industrial loft building in the East Village of downtown San Diego into his home and studio.

He became involved in social design projects, founding the Urban Art Trail and painting large-scale murals to improve blighted areas and reclaim neighborhoods.

Growing up in Mexico City, Rafael López was immersed in the rich cultural heritage and native color of street life.

[32] He has created artwork for international clients like Amnesty International, Apple, Atheneum Books for Young Readers, Charlesbridge Publishing, Chicago Tribune, Grammy Awards, Harper Collins, Henry Holt & Company, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, IBM, Intel, Lee & Low books, Library of Congress, Little, Brown and Company, Los Angeles Times, Penguin Books, Scholastic, The New York Times, United States Forest Service, United States Postal Service,[33][34] the Washington Post and the World Wildlife Fund and his work has been selected into multiple juried shows.

[44] López received the 2020 Pura Belpré Medal for illustration from the American Library Association for Dancing Hands: How Teresa Carreño Played the Piano for President Lincoln.

[47] Written by Margarita Engle[18] the book tells the story of Millo Castro Zaldarriaga, a mixed race Cuban girl in the 1930s music scene, who defied gender roles.

[49] The use of perspective in Drum Dream Girl has a surreal quality [50] and the illustrator has related his perception that children are more visually sophisticated than adults think, so he often uses abstract shapes, instead of realistic representations of objects.

[62] Honorary Co-Chairs for this event were President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama and it featured more than 125 best-selling authors, illustrators and poets on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.[63] López served as the honorary chair of California's Read Across America and speaks around the United States and abroad [2] to promote reading and literacy.

[64] Children's books illustrated by Rafael López have been printed in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish.

Using pictures and storytelling in both books and murals he strives to communicate hope and the knowledge that kids and families have the power to make change in their own communities.

[74] During the 2013 32nd Sharjah International Book Fair in the United Arab Emirates he was asked to teach a poster design workshop to aspiring and established illustrators.

The vibrant stamps featured mariachi musicians dressed in the traje de charro, playing the guitar, guitarrón, vihuela, violin and trumpet.

On NPR he described the power and universal quality of mariachi music to transcend language and culture bringing people together around the world.

[78] He is the artist of a series of 5 stamps in 2010 for the United States Postal Service[79] featuring Latin Music Legends Celia Cruz, Carlos Gardel, Carmen Miranda, Tito Puente and Selena.

[86] Selected paintings on wood and original drawings were shown at a multimedia exhibition called Writing With Pictures at the California Center for the Arts.

[88] Archival materials about the life and work of Rafael López are part of the University of California, Santa Barbara CEMA Library Collection.

[94] This story celebrates the power of community and reminds readers that a small group of committed individuals can impact meaningful change.

[97] To build community and encourage participation by young people and untrained artists López developed a mural style that works like a large-scale paint by numbers.

Working with urban libraries, López uses art to bring communities together and cites diversity as a bridge that can build trust, enlightenment and innovation.

[98] He has designed and developed murals in collaboration with the National Museum of Mexican Fine Art in Chicago,[99] American Federation of Teachers and other organizations.

[100] He has worked with hundreds of children, families and community members to create murals in Fresno, San Diego, Los Angeles and Pittsburg California, Fort Collins and Boulder, Colorado,[101] Chicago, Illinois and Seattle, Washington.