Discography Map Designer: 70 Maps Researched Since 2020
I am Mike Bell, the discography map designer behind mikebellmaps.com, and I have diligently researched 70 maps since the lockdowns of 2020. Each one plots an artist's studio albums as stations and every credited musician as a named line running through the records they played on. No AI drew any of it.
I am a show and event designer by trade. When that work stopped in 2020 I needed something to make, and what I had was a long interest in data visualisation and an early working life around bands. The first maps came out of that gap and I have not stopped since.
David Bowie Discography Tube Map Art Print
One of the first maps I drew, and the one I still point people at when they ask what all this is. A copy is held in the permanent collection at the V&A David Bowie Centre, V&A East Storehouse, London.
Explore This Art PrintWhat a discography map designer actually does all day
The drawing is the last part and the shortest. Almost all of the work is the spreadsheet that sits behind it. Every map follows the same six steps.
- Fix the album list. Studio records in release order, one column each, which becomes the row of stations.
- Read the credits on each record: sleeve notes, session archives and historical databases, cross-checked where two sources disagree.
- Give every credited musician their own row, and mark the albums they appear on.
- Count. One row totals how many credited musicians each album carries, which is the figure that tells me what the map will look like before I draw a line.
- Decide what is a through line and what is a branch. A musician on several albums runs as a line. A one-off credit becomes a branch.
- Draw it, then check every junction back against the sheet.
The Bowie sheet is a good example of why the counting matters. It carries 26 studio albums from the 1967 debut to Blackstar in 2016, and 167 names in total once the 2021 Toy column is included. Toy postdates the artwork and is marked on the sheet as not currently on the map, and the sorted version of the sheet, which leaves that column out, lists 166 names.
The number that tells me what a map will look like
Before I draw anything I read the musician-count row, and on Bowie it swings hard. Five credited musicians on the 1967 debut. Twenty-four on Black Tie White Noise in 1993. Eleven on Blackstar. A discography list cannot show you that. A map can, because the drawing gets visibly denser and then thins out again.
| Bowie album | Year | Credited musicians on the sheet |
|---|---|---|
| David Bowie | 1967 | 5 |
| Hunky Dory | 1971 | 5 |
| Young Americans | 1975 | 19 |
| The Buddha of Suburbia | 1993 | 6 |
| Black Tie White Noise | 1993 | 24 |
| Heathen | 2002 | 23 |
| Blackstar | 2016 | 11 |
Two albums released in the same year, 1993, and one carries four times the credits of the other. That contrast is the whole argument for drawing a career rather than listing it.
The lines that come back after twenty years
The other thing the sheet gives me is the gaps. Mick Ronson runs from The Man Who Sold the World in 1970 through to Pin Ups in 1973, five albums in four years, and then his line stops. It picks up once more on Black Tie White Noise in 1993, twenty years later, giving him six credits in total. On a list those two runs are unrelated entries. On a map it is one line that leaves and returns, and you can see it from across a room.
The steady lines are just as telling. Carlos Alomar appears on 11 of the 26 albums, Mike Garson on 11, Tony Visconti on 9. Dennis Davis and George Murray hold the rhythm section together through the Berlin records and then stop. That is the thing I am actually drawing: not the albums, but who was in the room for them.
A detail from the Bowie map. The junctions are where the research either holds up or falls apart.
Why I keep doing it
There is a practical reason as well as a creative one. I live with a mild neurological condition, and the best thing I can do about it is keep moving, keep designing and keep a routine. The research suits that. It is slow, it is detailed, and it rewards turning up every day rather than working in bursts.
So the maps became more than a project. They are the routine that keeps my mind engaged, and they connect back to the part of my working life that was always about bands. Whether I am plotting Bowie's studio albums or the plot lines of a film like Jaws, the process is identical and so is the reason for it.
Sizes and prices
Every map is printed as a museum-quality Giclée on 230gsm acid-free matte fine art paper.
- A3, 420 x 297 mm, unframed only, £35
- A2, 594 x 420 mm, unframed £45, or £125 in a black wood frame
- A1, 841 x 594 mm, unframed £65, or £175 in a black wood frame
There are also three inch formats, 16x12 in, 24x18 in and 36x24 in, priced the same way. They are separate formats rather than conversions of the A sizes, so 24x18 in sits alongside A2 rather than being the same thing.
See the map this post is built on
The sheet described above is the one behind the david bowie discography art print, available in A3, A2 and A1, unframed or in a black wood frame.
Related music maps
If you want the reading instructions rather than the origin story, start with how to read a music map. For the Bowie records themselves, I have written up david bowie albums ranked, which picks five out of the 26 and says why.
Questions I get asked
Who designs the Mike Bell Maps discography prints?
I do, on my own. I research the credits, build the spreadsheet, draw the artwork and write the listings. I am a show and event designer by trade and started the maps in 2020 when that work stopped.
How many discography maps have you made?
Seventy artists are mapped so far, alongside film plot maps, place maps and a football club map. The number goes up slowly because each one starts from scratch with the credits.
Are the maps made with AI?
No. Every map is deeply researched and hand-drawn from sleeve notes, session archives and historical databases. Nothing on any of them is generated, including the artwork.
What is not on a discography map?
Studio records only, as a rule. Live albums, compilations and soundtracks are left off, and so is anything released after the artwork was finished. On the Bowie map that means Toy, which came out in 2021, is on my research sheet but not on the print. A handful of maps carry a named exception, and where they do I say so on the product page.
How long does one map take?
The research is the long part and it varies with the discography. A career of nine albums with a settled line-up is a different job from 26 albums and 166 credited names, which is why the Bowie sheet took far longer to build than the drawing did.
Thank you for reading
If a map would suit someone you know better than it suits you, there is a gift card that works against any print in the range, and they can pick the artist and the size themselves.