Adobe has come out with an amazingly cool and creative tribute to David Bowie, and I absolutely love it. Right across the Creative Cloud suite of software, you can get your hands on a comprehensive box of digital tools to make your own Bowie-themed creations – and Adobe wants to see what you make.
This collaboration is part of a partnership with the official celebration of what would have been David Bowie’s 75th birthday, dubbed “Bowie 75”. It’s also celebrating the 50th anniversary of Ziggy Stardust, which is tomorrow on June 16th – hence the preponderance of Ziggy-themed imagery in the collection.
There’s absolutely loads here, and it’s available across Illustrator, Photoshop, Adobe Fresco and some of the other best digital art software that Adobe offers. So whichever program you use, you should be able to get stuck into making some David Bowie creations.
Users of Adobe’s 3D modelling program, Substance, can play with props and backgrounds based on famous Bowie album covers and posters. More generally, there are also make-up brushes named after Bowie hits, everything from ‘Ashes’ to ‘Queen Bish’, as well as ‘Changes’ and ‘Major Tom’.
A pattern sampler also allows you to use patterns from some of David Bowie’s most iconic suits and outfits, and remix them into your own work. There are also stickers available that cover some of Bowie’s most famous looks and imagery. There’s the famous lightning bolt from Aladdin Sane, and of course plenty of inspo from Ziggy Stardust. There are more than 150 Ziggy Stardust graphics in fact, according to Adobe.
Artists involved in the collaboration include Tina Touli, Kae Neskovic, Tabea Mahern and Thomas Hedger. Adobe is encouraging users to get stuck in with the Bowie Photoshop range to create Ziggy-style personas of their own, and share the on the the #AdobexBowie hashtag.
Simon Morris, Senior Director of Marketing at Adobe, said, “At Adobe, we passionately believe in Creativity is for All, and who embodies that ethos as much as David Bowie? A true icon who crucially believed that ‘art is inherent in everyone’.
“With these digital tools, we want to lift the limits of creativity and empower artistic expression – inspiring anybody with a story to tell and empowering them to create incredible personas, just like he did.”
The team at Bowie 75 said, “David’s creative works were incredibly subjective; always open to the interpretation of the individual. That makes these new tools from Adobe a perfect way to celebrate his legacy, by encouraging other people to actively engage with art, personal expression and to unleash their inner creative personas.”
It’s been a busy week of releases and updates for Adobe, with Lightroom getting video editing capabilities, and a new Photoshop Neural Filter for restoring old photos with a single click.
You can download the Bowie tools from Adobe here (opens in new tab) if you want to get started on creating your own personas. You can also check out our guide on how to download Photoshop.
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