David Bowie project

Following the news that David Bowie had passed we were set a day’s brief that asked us to take the lyrics from one of his songs and translate them into a graphical piece. Bowie was an incredibly complex character which is why only choosing one song was a relief to me who prefers a specific brief rather than a broad one. 

My initial reaction to the brief wasn't good because personally I had never really listened to any of Bowie’s music and didn't know anything about the man. I begun to look at his music videos and soon found out that he had an incredibly artistic sense which piqued my curiosity. I came to terms with the fact that I was clueless about his character and actually began to use this to my advantage.

As someone who was looking at his music videos with fresh eyes, I took the lyrics and meanings of  the words quite literally. I decided to choose ‘Life on Mars?’ as the video of choice because the aesthetics of it were incredibly pleasing and I knew at once that I wanted to translate it into a graphical piece. 

This brief was rather rushed and if I had the time then I would have added watercolour to my drawing. Nevertheless, I feel that my illustrated interpretation of the lyrics is unique and looks effective placed on the outside of the cube. In fact, one of the biggest challenges of this brief was drawing the net of the square correctly and accurately. In the end it took several attempts and lots of rubbing out but I got there eventually. 

I feel that the final product stood out amongst the rest of the Bowie boxes and I saw several people pick up the box and look at the illustrations covering it. The box would have benefitted from a splash of colour as I did feel that from a distance it was lacking anything vibrant.

Beginning the illustration

The box amongst others

The complete net