Brief

Bob Dylan is known for his clever lyrical wordplay that resonates within the music world. When a batch of never before released lyric sheets were found from his time recording The Basement tapes in 1967, Capitol Music Group enlisted a group of talented musicians composed of Jim James, Elvis Costello, Marcus Mumford, Taylor Goldsmith, and Rhianon Giddons to interpret the lyrics into whatever way they saw fit. On those sheets was the song Spanish Mary, a story about a perilous journey of abandon for the search of Spanish Mary. The lyrics resonate, asking the listener “is it a mystery to live, or is it a mystery to die?”. Visual were needed to tell the tale, and I was happy to jump on.

Process

The song Spanish Mary really spoke to me, so I was very excited to work on it. I wanted to show the the journey to Spanish Mary and how the crew was willing to go to places unknown and dangerous to pursue her/it. I drew inspiration from the architectural design of director Hidetaka Miyazaki from the Dark Soul video game series that gave a very ominous and foreboding presence of the danger to come. Paired with collage cutouts of Diore’s illustrations from Dante’s inferno, I wanted to craft a story book like look of this journey. The project’s deadline was 2 weeks but the free creativity I was given allowed for a whole world to flow out seamlessly. 

Outcome

The project gave way to allow me to better practice dividing work amongst other designers with the art direction already established and while under the clock. This was also a huge exercise in using and understanding material that was no longer under copyright laws which were used for our collages.