Bono
— Surrender
Telling the story of a rock legend with doodles.
Overview
Musical and cultural icon Bono wanted a strong and compelling visual component to accompany his upcoming memoir, Surrender. As one of the best storytellers in modern history, we leveraged his own voice to bring specific moments in the memoir to life through animation. First, Bono sent us a few of his iPad doodles, then we matched his doodle style with animator Joe Pease to further breathe life into Bono’s legendary stories.
Results
✲ Work premiered across all of U2’s social channels on Bono’s birthday digitally.
✲ Featured in Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, The Guardian, and more
The project started with Bono texting us doodles he had made.
ANIMATING BONO'S VISION
We found animator Joe Pease, who matched Bono’s drawing style, and built storyboards based on Bono’s illustrations. We then created a sound design to play against Bono’s narration, which his personal studio engineer mixed.
1 / Swipe through to see a selection of our illustrations.
The creative hurdle was adapting Bono’s words and a few sketches into full-blown animated shorts that aligned with his creative vision.
Watch "Surrender" which was released on May 10 in celebration of Bono's birthday.
Watch "Two Hearts Beat as One" released on August 31 on Bono and Ali Hewson's 40th Wedding Anniversary.
Watch "Song for Someone" released on October 11 to honor the day U2 was born and the bandmates who brought it to life.