I wanted try and illustrate the changing faces and style of David Bowie. And after seeing loads of giffs and flip books of David Bowie changing faces, I wanted to try myself. I started this by picking the styles that I wanted to illustrate. I chose the styles Mod, Space Oddity, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sain, Halloween Jack, The thin white duke, clown, Goblin King, tin machine, 90’s and backstar Then I used illustrator to create line drawing of the face. This was very difficult and took ages to get right! But I’m really happy with how they all turned out and I’m going to colour them in and use them as one of my gifs.

 

I really enjoyed doing the typography classes so I knew it was something I wanted to include in my zine. I thought I would experiment different techniques to see what worked best for my zine. I tried water colours, ink, pen, pencil and photoshop/ illustrator. I found the most effect ones were the ones I wrote and then cleaned up on Photoshop and Illustrator. So I think I will be using this technique to do the typography for my final zine.

Another person who inspired David Bowie was the Japanese designer Kansai Yamamoto. It was Yamamoto who inspired David to give Ziggy Stardust bright red hair and also he inspired all the clothes that Ziggy wore. I didn’t know how I would try and experiment with this one so I just did some drawings of David Bowie wearing the clothes.

For my last inspiration I looked at the artist Guy Peelaet. He was the artist that created the cover for Diamond Dogs. He used bright colours and high saturation to create him images and I thought this would be perfect for a poster.

Andy Warhol was a huge influence on David Bowie as he wrote a song about him and even played him in a film. I looked the art that Andy Warhol had created and picked two to try and create a David Bowie/ Andy Warhol themed art work.

I picked this piece of art work as inspiration as I loved the black background in comparison with the bright colours in the tigers face. From this inspiration I used the song space oddity for my inspiration, I created two astronauts in a bright red and green and created to planets in the background with opposite colours in opposite positions. I then put a back background behind to make it more like Andy Warhol’s work. I really like it and love the effect it creates.

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I also used the famous Maryilyn Monroe artwork as inspiration for a poster for my zine.

I used Halloween jack as inspiration for this piece, I first drew him out and then scanned him into the computer where I used photoshop to colour him in different colours so he looked like the Marylin Monroe print. I do quite like this piece but i don’t think its clean enough to go into my zine.

Loads and Loads of people say they have been inspired by David Bowie from Lady Gaga to Ricky Gervais. So I wanted to find out what artist and fashion designers inspired David Bowie himself. From this research I found loads of people that inspired Bowie but I decided to only focus on three: Andy Warhol, Kansai Yamamoto and Guy Peelaet. Andy Warhol is famously known for pop art and created commercial art. Kansai Yamamoto is a Japanese Designer famously known for creating the outfits for Ziggy Stardust and Guy Peelaet is comic/ animated artist known for creating the cover for David’s Diamond dogs. I’m going to use these artists and designers style to create some David Bowie themed artwork for my zine.

 

As part of our new typography brief we were asked to create mastheads and straplines for our zine title. We were asked to create something that could be cut out by using a Laser cutter. I first made a spider diagram to try and come up with the name for my zine and strap line. I chose the name ‘ Dirty Boy, for my masthead as ‘Dirty Boys’ was the name of one of David Bowies songs that is less well known. I feel like the name of the zine is current and I can see it working very well. I also pick a quote that David Bowie has said for my strapline “Music is life” I really like this quote as music has a huge impact in my life and I thought that it makes the zine well rounded. I then drew a few designs out so I could decided what kind of font I wanted. I chose a simple line one for the Masthead because its easy to read and could stand out on a page. For the Strapline I chose something more decorative to contrast the masthead. I then created three designs that could be used for the Laser cutting machine. The first one is more simple with just straight lines, that could be quite effective on the page. The second one is a little more decorative with musical notes down the side. The third one is the most decorative with a heart filled with musical instruments as Bowie played a number of instruments himself. I quite happy with how they have turned out, but I think I am leaning more towards the third one as it stands out more and I think it would look effective on the front page of my Zine.

In 2013 I was lucky enough to visit the V and A to see the exhibition ‘ David Bowie IS’ in London. It was one of my favourite exhibition I have ever seen, which is why I had to include it in my blog and sketchbook! I spent a good 2 and half to 3 hours in the exhibition and could of quite happy spent longer, if i’d of had the time. I learnt so much in the exhibition like how he processed his ideas with biro sketches and notes and cut up lyrics. I also found out who influenced Bowie to go into music and fashion. His main inspirations were Little Richard, Andy Warhol and Kansai Yamamoto. I will use this information to help me create my zine and even help me find ways to process my zine like him!

 

I have finally decided what theme I am going to do for my zine. I have always been a huge music fan, so I felt that it was only fitting to use David Bowie as the theme for my zine, as he sadly died a few days ago. I want to create something that is a kind of tribute to Bowie but also is very artistic. I want to experiment with typography again and look into using it to illustrate his lyrics. I also want to look into his fashion and how it changed over the years. and also people that influenced him and created the David Bowie that we know today.

The first thing I have done is to get, loads of books about Bowie from the library and I also have watched documentaries and read academic papers on him as well. From all this research I have learnt so much about him and his life, and have created a timeline of David Bowie. This has helped me understand and gives me a snap shot of what his incredible life has consisted of. Next I am going to look at who has influenced David Bowie in his life and hopefully use that to create some art work that I can use in my zine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The final part of the typography brief was to pick a word from the list that we liked and to create 3 different typography versions using  the grid we had learnt. I chose the words; structure for alignment, equal for balance, consistency for repetition, rank for hierarchy and diversity for contrast. I then created three fonts for each word using a varieties of mixed media like paint, felt pens, ink and biro. I really enjoyed doing this and I really liked the way it all worked out.

 

As part of the typography workshop brief, we were asked to annotate the typeface, shown above. This helped me to become more familiar with how a letter is formed and provide me with more knowledge of typography. We were also asked to create lists of words which we felt described the 5 design principles, shown in the picture above. We were then asked to draw various fonts for each of the 5 design principles, I really liked doing this as it made me think different ways of explaining myself by  using typography.