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.

Rodriguez's first picture books, Mama Does the Mambo by Katherine Leiner and Float Like a Butterfly by Ntozake Shange were both published by Hyperion. Edel’s latest picture book is Oye Celia by Katie Sciurba (forthcoming from Henry Holt). He is currently at work writing and illustrating two books about a little penguin named Sergio to be published by Little, Brown.