“Somebody special, Looking at me” *
As you are well aware, Jonathan Barnbrook is the designer behind The Next Day campaign, not to mention his work on Heathen and Reality, and the associated single releases from each of the three albums.
In NME’s three-page piece about Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime) and the upcoming Nothing Has Changed compilation they published last week, there was a page given over to Barnbrook’s discussion regarding the design of Nothing Has Changed, or, to employ the correct style; Nothing has changed.
Well, they only used a small part of Barnbrook’s contribution, so he has kindly given us permission to use the full, unedited piece here. It's a great read and he sheds light on those mysterious stickers which we first revealed here.
Over to you Mr Barnbrook.
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There is no longer such a thing as ‘the record cover’, quite early on in the process of designing ‘The Next Day’ I realised that the release of an album is an event, not something physical, I don’t mean that it is just digital now, more, it is distributed, talked about publicised in every format. It now appears on websites, twitter etc. The physical package in the shop is but a small part of what could actually be described best as an event.
To deal with this very modern issue for the design it needs to be an underlying concept that works for everything. For ‘The Next Day’ it was the white square, which took on a life of its own and announced Bowie was back, it played with his identity after an absence of 10 years and your expectations of the pop star as an image to project your own thoughts on.
Design for 'Nothing has changed' was a very different task. We have the context of Bowie producing music again and a whole generation acknowledging his influence and also others discovering him anew. We are dealing with a set of tracks that are curated from his past which are already known. It is a not a release which shouts that someone is back with the burning light of new work, but more a collection that needs to be portrayed with a design that is a little bit softer and more reflective in its tone.
Here I was also faced with the task to make something of interest in a world where the record cover has simply become, ‘nice’ and not the subject of discussion or adulation that it was in the 20th century. This is coupled with the fact that most ‘Best Of’ designs are atrocious – overdone montages of library photos of the musician that look as though they were possibly not even seen by them, meaning that the design is not usually for the true fans. There is very little mindspace to find beauty or to identify with the artist. Instead this design for 'Nothing has changed' is deliberately restrained, minimal, and well, un-designed, allowing the contemplative nature of the images to come through.
To be true to the content, photos from different times in Bowie’s career are used, including one from today. A different image appears on each format. The linking theme is Bowie looking in the mirror. Something which was a strong enough ‘archetype’ to provide an immediately identifiable visual link, but also to make it clear this was a collection of songs through the experience of one person’s life, not necessarily a specific concept or period of time as albums tend to be.
Each image is captioned (and it has been made to look like a caption rather than a title), with the line from the Bowie song ‘Sunday’ from ‘Heathen’, which is ‘Nothing has changed’, as the title of the album. All the other information appears upon a sticker which can be peeled off leaving only the image and this sentence. The typography is vaguely reminiscent of the time period but not overtly so. There is nothing that makes me cringe more than a retro cover for a compilation, these kind of releases are only interesting if they are viewed in the light of today, not full of nostalgia for a time that no longer exists.
The use of a caption rather than title creates a dialogue between the image and text. From this there are of course the rather clichéd thoughts about Bowie changing musical styles all through his career but it immediately throws up some other more interesting thoughts. Bowie as the young dandy and the obvious comparisons with Oscar Wilde and 'The Picture of Dorian Gray’ with the portrait that ages. In the younger photos, with Bowie looking in the mirror, how is he imagining his future? Does he, as we all do at that time, feel immortal? Does he see himself in the way that others see him? As Ziggy Stardust, does he see the separation between himself and the character he has created? With the later images, as a man who has lived an incredibly unusual life, what is he thinking about? His legacy? How the world perceives him? When he sees his reflection, does he at any moment imagine himself in a similar way to someone who has listened to his music does?
Other questions too that we all face arise in my mind, how does he deal with getting old, his mortality, his looks changing? Is this more difficult for someone who has constantly been photographed and who’s image has been everywhere? Can a soul and the decisions made be seen in someone’s face?
Although I have taken time to explain these covers here, they are meant to be talked about far less than ’The Next Day’, more I hope that they do what a good record cover should do, enhance the experience of listening to the music and also maybe make the listener reflect a little on what a 'Best Of’ actually is, not just a grab-bag of songs that by a series of unconnected events are regarded as the 'best tunes', but a whole life experience of one musician, some of which was planned, some of it was instinctive, some of it influenced by stuff beyond anybody’s control. But, all was driven ultimately by one person’s unique creative force and how they dealt with and interpreted the world.
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Barnbrook
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Thanks Jonathan, and congratulations on another beautiful design concept.
* For those of you wondering about today’s lyric quotation and what Bowie song contains that line...it’s actually from the Bryan Ferry song, If There Is Something, which appeared on the debut Roxy Music album and was covered by Tin Machine for their second studio album.