David Bowie: The Next Day

2013
Sony Music Entertainment
New York

Artwork and viral campaign for David Bowie’s latest album The Next Day. The design was completed in absolute secrecy by Barnbrook after Bowie’s 10-year recording hiatus. Details were released to a very surprised world in January 2013 causing it to make headline news.

The appropriation of a previous Bowie cover quickly made it the most talked about album cover design for several years. It even prompted a website that allows its users to style any image in a similar way to the album.

Along with the cover, Barnbrook originated a complete advertising campaign based on the ‘meme’ of the white square as a symbol of the album. This was used in guerrilla advertising worldwide and was also taken up on social media by Bowie fans. The campaign received acclaim for being an extremely successful and original example of marketing, even making mainstream press with the London Evening Standard publishing an article about it.