advice from DAVID BOWIE

I struggled with what my first blog post should be. It’s the door into everything that follows. It should say something worth reading, or at least give you a sense of the vibe of what’s coming.

So I started thinking about creative advice that stuck with me.

And oddly enough, it came from David Bowie.

Now I’ll admit something up front. I wasn’t always a Bowie fan. In fact, I came to him pretty late. But that’s actually part of the lesson. What I realized after really listening to his work is that Bowie’s music isn’t meant to be understood in a single song. The real impact comes when you listen to the whole album. It’s storytelling. Themes unfold. Characters emerge. And by the end it hits you like a ton of bricks.

What struck me most about Bowie was the purity of his point of view. It was unapologetically his. Take it or leave it. He wasn’t creating based on what other people wanted. He dove into the water and swam out to where his feet couldn’t touch the ground. Then he stayed there. In that uncomfortable place.

That’s where the real work lives.

And that’s where I finally found him.

Watching the documentary Moonage Daydream made that even clearer. Bowie was constantly transforming. Different personas, different sounds, different visual worlds. But underneath all of it was a single thread: fearless creative exploration.

For anyone looking for inspiration, I highly recommend starting there. Watch Moonage Daydream https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c70ko07julc . Then dive into the albums and let them unfold the way they were meant to. https://open.spotify.com/artist/0oSGxfWSnnOXhD2fKuz2Gy?si=K6rHellgTMi6Es0cQn1z1A

Interestingly, Bowie’s psychedelic transformations and the characters he created ended up influencing a visual solution I later developed for a BODYARMOR campaign. That same idea of shifting identities and pushing visual boundaries helped shape the work. https://www.propagandapimp.com/bodyarmor

Sometimes inspiration shows up late. But when it does, it sticks.