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Comic strip decorates BAM's Dundee site

6 Aug 15 BAM is establishing a track-record for imaginative site hoardings in Scotland but its latest may be hard to top.

'Adventures in Design' by Will Morris and David Mackenzie
'Adventures in Design' by Will Morris and David Mackenzie

After last year’s alternative Vogue covers decorating the perimeter of one of its Glasgow sites, it now has a 150-metre long comic book strip at the waterfront construction site of V&A Museum of Design Dundee.

Comic illustrator Will Morris and graphic designer David Mackenzie were commissioned to design the giant comic strip. Called Adventures in Design, it tells the story of the contribution of design to everyday life, featuring such Scottish designs as the Falkirk Wheel and Harris Tweed.

Dundee is the home of DC Thomson, whose publications include The Beano and The Dandy, begetter of Dennis the Menace, Desperate Dan, Minnie the Minx and the Bash Street Kids.

“Comic illustration is such an integral part of Dundee’s creative history that we immediately understood the appeal for local audiences. Equally we hope this approach will inspire and excite audiences nationally, and around the world,” said V&A Dundee marketing & communications manager Tara Wainwright.

Lorna Macaulay, chief executive of the Harris Tweed Authority, said: “The Harris Tweed Authority are honoured to have our story told in these beautiful hoarding boards around this iconic new building. If this is the level of creativity on the building site, I am deeply excited for what’s to come inside the building when it’s ready.”

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The £80m V&A Dundee building (below) will protrude out into the River Tay. To enable the land reclamation work to progress, BAM Construction has constructed a cofferdam in the river. The cofferdam was completed at the end of May, ahead of the June 1st date where the summer embargo of works on the river begins to avoid any impact on the harbour seal breeding season.

Work continues to progress on programme with the infill works to the cofferdam and the foundations to the building now underway. The first tower crane was erected on site in July with the second and third following this month.

Visitors to the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow last year were treated to the strange spectacle of alternative Vogue magazine covers on the hoardings of a BAM site in Hanover Street (pictured below, click to enlarge).  Called How I'd Sink American Vogue, the display by Scott King purported to show “what would happen if Anna Wintour resigned and was replaced by an editor who steadily degenerated into drink and drug induced psychosis during a 12 month tenure”.

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