On Your Own delineates a item brand of late 90s ennui directed at falsities: it lampoons omnibus-riding, camcorder-wielding tourists and a civilisation where emotions are "bought mail-society." Spirituality is transactional, and reality is cheap simulacra.

Thematically, it's fiddling surprise that Blur frontman and Gorillaz co-creator Damon Albarn has since described On Your Own as "one of the first ever Gorillaz tunes." Information technology was released in 1997, a year before Albarn and comics artist Jamie Hewlett formed their "virtual" ring, whose fictional lives accept come up to be unquestioningly accepted every bit just as "existent" as whatsoever other pop confection.

Hewlett'due south initial character designs place them firmly in the counterculture comics tradition: the linework is pronounced, postures exaggerated, colours flat. The band could easily be the younger cousins of the riot grrl-esque eponymous star of his 90s strip Tank Girl, and the creative person brings the same energetic artwork to Gorillaz, forming an artful that married rebellion with cuteness.

The caricature-like proportions of each Gorillaz member's concrete features, gaits and gestures neatly placed them in the boxes set out for "traditional" manufactured pop groups: the cute one, the serious one, the pin-up, the bad boy. There'south the badass stoop and sullen, chemically-enhanced come-to-bed eyes of bassist Murdoc; the puppy dog eyes and chip-toothed charm of frontman 2nd; ambrosial Manga-like tween guitarist Noodle; and hoody-sporting behemoth drummer Russel, drawn as an amalgamation of hip-hop tropes, finished with a suspicious stare.

The development of the characters' illustration manner has been demarcated by singled-out "phases," to use the Gorillaz terminology, with new anthology Humanz putting united states of america in "Phase Four." Each album release and the accompanying ephemera – videos, printed books, models, apps, and and then on – bears a way that iterates on its predecessor, yet in terms of graphic symbol blueprint naught has been altered likewise drastically over the past xix-odd years. Cheers to these distinct identities, the band are firmly their own entities rather than feeling like visual avails for some Albarn-led troupe, crouching Wizard of Oz-like backside a mantle.

One of the earliest shifts was in ameliorating the flat blocky colours of Gorillaz' debut  with textures and more than subtle palettes in the lead up to the release of second album Demon Days. The tape heralded more mature and complex visual representations to complement a more hip hop-led sound, dense product values at the hands of Danger Mouse, and an ever-starry collab list including MF Doom, De La Soul, Shaun Ryder (!) and, bizarrely, Dennis Hopper.

By 2010'due south concept album Plastic Beach, the art direction had been dialled up to bombastic new levels: the comprehend uses lysergic, plasticine-like 3D imagery to depict a futuristic trash island. Shelving band portraiture for landscape hints at the broader enviro-political concerns of the record and its focus on big-name collaborations with the likes of Bobby Womack, Snoop Dogg, and Lou Reed. Hewlett has since briefly discussed this move abroad from "cartoons" as something to exist "rectified" on the follow-upwards; but what'due south become evident is that this hyperreal three-dimensionality wasn't entirely a success. Phase Three was very much about CGI and realistic details like shadows, notwithstanding it was maybe almost too real, removing the sense of this foursome inhabiting a mysterious otherworld.

Humanz's artwork signals a render to Gorillaz' earlier 2d graphic style, with flatter character pattern confronting richly detailed 3D backgrounds. The Stage 4 artful has a more than mature end to the characterisation: the lines are sharper, and there'southward a more premium feel.

The gradual development of this more than intricate illustration style helped accommodate Gorillaz' tricky alive setup. While Albarn and other musicians sometimes appeared on stage as silhouettes, the Gorillaz themselves were enlarged as the stars of their own prove, appearing with increasingly sophisticated animations and bombastic backdrops until somewhen evolving into eerie 3D holograms. Despite the rapid recent developments VR applied science, early Gorillaz holographic efforts still look impressive, if slightly laggier than we're used to today. Few Gorillaz elements oasis't stood the test of time, the main being the band'southward typography: the faux-rebellion of the red graffiti-like letterforms of the debut album is wince-inducing, and was already toned down to sensible white sans serif lettering for Demon Days.

Jamie Green, a media planner at agency the7stars, which worked on the Humanz campaign, describes a "connective tissue" which runs through each release – mainly in their videos. In brusk, this overarching narrative is a dystopian tale in which the band's Demon Days habitat was destroyed, forcing them onto Plastic Beach'south isle built from detritus. The apotheosis of this playful yet apocalyptic trajectory is to be found on Humanz, Green suggests. Certainly, existential unease processed through cheeky rebellion and the joy of music plays out beautifully in the interactive 360 degree blitheness for Saturnz Barz (Spirit House). The video explores familiar horror picture show haunted house tropes (a callback to Demon Days' zombie picture show sampling, peradventure, which Pitchfork described every bit "Danger Mouse & Albarn [making] like they're Dario Argento & Goblin") earlier catapulting us into an outer space wilderness.

This new Gorillaz cloth was mooted in early 2015, when Hewlett posted new pictures of Murdoc and Noodle to Instagram and later confirmed, "Yes. Gorillaz returns." His images were striking for their depth, using rich textures that echo both printed halftone and estimator generated pixels, a bully distillation of Gorillaz' power to transcend the on- and offline worlds. The sleeve itself is another smart Demon Days callback: the band'due south faces are arranged in the same iv square filigree, but now acquit a painterly quality that signals an aesthetic and sonic maturation.

For the start time in Gorillaz' history the characters have aged in accordance with the seven years that have passed between this record and Plastic Beach: "They've definitely grown upwards – Murdoc isn't quite as much of a party animate being, and Noodle is all of a sudden 19, not 12 – just I don't recollect the evolution of the graphic way is representative of their ages," says creative William Millner. "The style might be more than sophisticated, but the band is just a piddling older and possibly a petty stupider."

Consciously or non, Gorillaz career-long knack for engaging fans in new means has consistently held a mirror upwards to trends in digital design and branding campaigns. Fans want unfettered, unedited access to their idols: Gorillaz circulate evidently candid "live chats", blithe with the experimental touches (reflections, underwater woooziness) that proliferate on Tumblr. The campaign around the release of Humanz was distinctly visuals-led: every bit with previous releases, a new microsite was created; and

the album is accompanied by not one but two apps, also equally a global "Humanz Business firm Political party" listening event utilising geo-specific digital technology.

"The visual fashion and the deliberately abstract style the band's narrative unfolds mirror their musical mode, and the experimentation they throw into each track," says Greenish. "The two are inextricably entwined, especially as the visuals get more than experimental so do the instrumentations and collaborations."

Gorillaz merged virtual and the "existent" lives years ahead of Instagram et al – this motley bunch encouraged the "cross platform interactions" and aced the "digital storytelling" that branding agencies dream of before such jargon was even "ideated."

For all Gorillaz' virtualness, their fans appoint with them with a sincerity, joy and hysteria that brand them equally "real" equally whatsoever other popstars. The smart and beautifully crafted visual renderings of the band succeed because they're unproblematic on the surface and conceptual to the core; and demonstrate the stiff and powerful things that can be achieved when art and music collide in the right hands, human or otherwise.

For the residual of our Gorillaz coverage, visit Gorillaz: Come up Inside