Meet Lewis James, the Creative Director of The Celebration Tour
Photo courtesy of Lewis James
AnOther Magazine features an interview with Lewis James, the talented creative director behind Madonna’s Celebration Tour.
James, who studied graphic design at Central Saint Martins – University of the Arts London, always had an interest in architectural design, technology and video; Madonna got in touch with him after she attended Post Malone‘s 12 Karat Gold Tour in October 2022 and was so impressed by James’ work on the show that she immediately engaged him to work on what would become The Celebration Tour.
Lewis recalls with AnOther Mag:
Madonna went to see a [Post Malone] show of mine last year in New York, and a few days later, her management reached out to say hey. A couple of days later they asked if I could fly to New York. In the space of four days I was on Madonna’s sofa, chatting about the show. I think she saw something in the show that she really liked, and we started the relationship from there. Post Malone is a fun artist to work with, but completely the opposite of Madonna. Madonna is extremely involved in the process, which is amazing. She has a lot of conviction in her ideas, and she knows what she wants.
Those familiar with the work of Lewis James would notice that the layout of the new Madonna tour is heavily influenced by his design for Post Malone. Lewis created the actual concert, design, layout etc. including the box Madonna is seen above the crowd and the iconic stadium static circle amongst everything else.
He explains:
You’ve just gotta have to put your head into the space of a superfan when you’re creating a show that is all about her history. Of course, her apparition appears throughout the show with this mask. [We had] talked about how the past felt like a sort of a dream. I think being able to interact with yourself on stage is an interesting concept. You could show a video, but that feels very literal. So we thought of a way to be figurative about it. It brings so much more having a person there on stage.
Visit AnOtherMag.com for the full interview.
The calm before the storm. Photo credit: @Madonna on Instagram
