Skip to main content

Blackstar ★

The artwork for the late David Bowie’s new album Blackstar is simple, clean and current. With a dark connotation running throughout the design it's clear to see that this album came from the very essence of David's imminent death; listening to the songs myself I felt that most lyrics were also geared in this way.


I researched into the album and discovered the graphics for the material related to the pre release and cover for the album were created by Jonathan Barnbrook. He mentions in an interview with Creative Review that 'We are assaulted by thousands of images of different ideologies everyday – and the only way to break through this is with simplicity and clarity'. I think this is a perfect statement to describe the world of design today, often designs can become overcrowded with complex editing work and saturated colour palettes so it is refreshing to see a design that us stripped back to it's core, using basic geometric shapes and black and white colouring.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Virgin Atlantic Safety Video

This video caught my attention on a recent holiday aboard a Virgin Atlantic flight to Florida, the video is displayed before the flight and aims to deliver the essential safety information through an engaging and unique style. A story plays out throughout the short film, the use of animation engages you into the video and communicates the information to the viewer successfully. The company behind the project, Art & Graft created the initial ideas for the 6 minute film in just under 3 months. Considering throughout the process that the video must be able to stay on trend and current throughout it’s probably long tenure and diverse use throughout the Virgin Atlantic fleet.     https://youtu.be/8XNxZh9_YN0 Storyboard concept for the opening scenes.

Virgin Holidays Live Advert

“The tension in the room was unbelievable” Virgin Holidays recently produced a live advert for TV something to be shown once to a captive audience that had to flow perfectly and required months of planning. The advert did feature some errors and mistakes but I feel this actually helped reinforce the point that the video at each location is live, this isn't something that's been filmed in advance and edited nicely together in a cosy studio, it's raw, it's new and it doesn't always go as planned. I pulled this quote from Creative Review who themselves wrote an article on the ad. “The tension in the room was unbelievable,” says Ratigan of the broadcast moment, which took place at ITN Productions’ Master Control room in London. “There was a fair amount of noise from the gallery director and technicians, but the client, agency and production company people, including myself, were silent. There was nothing we could do except wait and watch.” I think what Ratiga...

Chronology

For my final major project, I developed a brand identity for a theme park, called Chronology based in Stoke-on-Trent. Materials produced in association with this concept include tickets and vouchers alongside a range of promotional print such as leaflets and guides. In addition to these developed products I produced a vertical wall poster displaying a general advertisement for the Chronology theme park / attraction. I looked at ways I could reach my target market through the development of a mobile app, and an interface that can link the park real time with the application. I developed concepts for the Exhibition Space including to scale representations of the artwork I would include. I wanted to give the Exhibition Space a theme so I thought of different textures of wallpaper to use and the inclusion of lighting. The logo was crafted from drawing done by hand. I wanted something that looked handwritten and at the same time inco...