I was invited by Mark Blamire of Print Process to be one of 100 contributors to a project that would see a typographic screenprint created exclusively for the V&A as part of its activity around its David Bowie isexhibition which ran from March 23 to July 28, 2013.
The brief was very straightforward: set the word “bowie” in whatever monotone typographic composition I wanted. Having very recently (at that time) been the best man at the wedding of one of Celia Philo’s daughters (Celia art directed the iconic Aladdin Sane album shot by 60s photography legend, Brian Duffy), I submitted the word Bowie set in a slightly tweaked version of Baskerville - which (while not an exact match) is reminiscent of the custom serif type setting on the Aladdin Sane album. The colour treatment of the type on the album sleeve also makes me think of iridescent, reflective material, which is what the V&A screenprint was going to be produced on – another reason to reference the cover’s typography in my submission to the project.
Other contributors to the project include Jonathan Barnbrook, Anthony Burrill, Crispin Finn, Trevor Jackson, Michael C Place, Emmi Salonen and Cladia Kat and Tony Brook from Spin.
