Designer of David Bowie’s Blackstar Discusses the Cover’s Meaning

Jonathan Barnbrook is the graphic designer who designed several of David Bowie‘s album covers, including this year’s Blackstar. In a new interview with Dezeen (via FACT), he discussed the cover’s meaning. “This was a man who was facing his own mortality, and I hope the design is appropriate to that,” he said.

“When we discussed themes, they were more universal than specifically about him but they were to do with much of what has been speculated on in the press,” he said. “So the idea of mortality is in there, and of course the idea of a black hole sucking in everything, the Big Bang, the start of the universe, if there is an end of the universe. These are things that relate to mortality.”

He added: “For this album, I think it’s not just about the symbolism in it, it is as much about the emotional feel of it, in particular, the vinyl, the black record, the black packaging, and the fact that you can see the record as a physical thing that degrades, it get scratched as soon as it comes into being, that is a comment on mortality too.”

But, lest he give away the whole game: “He was always quite keen that I didn’t reveal the meaning of everything. Also people are definitely still grieving for him (including myself) so I don’t want to be too direct about it.”

Read the whole interview here. 

Read our “Afterword” feature on Bowie, plus tributes from Nile Rodgers, Bradford Cox, Carlos Dengler, Thurston Moore, Carlos Alomar, and Jonathan Lethem.

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