del Rodriguez was born in 1971 in Havana, Cuba. In 1980, his family immigrated to the United States on the Mariel Boatlift. They settled in Miami, where he lived before enrolling at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 1990. Rodriguez studied illustration, painting, and graphic design and did design internships at Spy magazine and MTV. He graduated from Pratt in 1994 with a degree in painting and worked at Spy briefly before joining Time magazine as a designer.

He is currently art director of Time's Canadian and Latin American editions. As a freelance illustrator, Rodriguez has worked for WBMG, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Progressive, New York magazine, The Nation, The Village Voice, and Time. His illustrations have appeared in American Illustration, Communication Arts, and the annual of the Society of Illustrators. His is recipient of both a Gold and Silver Medal from the Society of Illustrators. A stamp he created for the United States Postal Service became available in the summer of 2005.

Edel’s picture book oeuvre includes: Mama Does the Mambo by Katherine Leiner (Hyperion), Float Like a Butterfly by Ntozake Shange (Hyperion), and Oye, Celia by Katie Sciurba (Henry Holt).

In spring 2008, with the publication of Sergio Makes a Splash! (Little, Brown), Edel made his debut as author and artist. The second book featuring the same little penguin, Sergio Saves the Game! was published by Little, Brown in spring 2009. Sonia Sotomayor: A judge grows in the Bronx / la juez que crecio en el Bronx, by Jonah Winter, will be published by Atheneum / Simon & Schuster in fall 2009, followed by Robomop, by Sean Taylor (Dial / Penguin).