Last week I published the first part and we got some really nice comments from designers all over the world. Most of them need music to finish a piece or get inspired & motivated in use of color and shapes. There were some more artists who want to spread their words.
How designers get influenced part 1 was very successfull and informative article about the combination of music and design. We had eleven designers talking about their experiences and views on music among them like Alex Beltechi, Pete Harrison and Rik Ooestenbroek. It is totally worth to check out.
This time we also have some different views on the same topic. We'd love to discuss everything with you guys more, so just leave a comment. My question is:
"How does music inspire you and what music do you listen to, while designing?"
Shadow Chen
website http://www.saltyshadow.com/
I love music second to I love art, sometimes even more, in my opinion music is the most amazing thing people can give to this world, it's magical, inspirational, sentimental, healing...it's everything.I always dreamed of being a musician, or a singer performing on the stage, I think it's the most precious and desirable gift people can have, since I'm not good enough to do that, I transform my feelings while hearing the music to my artworks, hence it become a very special and inspiring process for me.Music can be art , and art can be music.
My favorite genre is rock, new wave, post punk, shoegaze, dreampop, downtempo...there are too many, my top musicians are The Cure ,The Flaming lips, Robin Guthrie...I'm also a chill-out radio fan, love listening to belowzero and anji bee's chillcast.
Justin Maller
website http://justinmaller.com/"Music is an integral, interwoven, intangible yet indispensable part of my creative process. I tend to save listening to my favourite albums for times where I need to produce my best creative work - I will often watch movies when drumming out less inspired work, but find that my imagination really fires up when the tunes kick in. I have no set genre or band that I listen to when I create - I just listen to whatever album it is that I have on rotation and see where it takes me. Lately I've been listening to The XX, Led Zeppelin and Bloc Party - it's made for some really wonderful creative sessions."
Erik Johansson
website http://www.alltelleringet.com/
Music is an important part of my inspiration, but I think that it's very individual which kind of music that is inspiring for different people. Before I begun doing photo and retouch I painted with water color, the ideas were similar but the technique different. I discovered that the kind of music I listened to while painting affected the look of the painting a lot. Now as I work in a different way which requires a lot more time I often use the music to come up with ideas. When I then work with the photos in the computer the idea doesn't really change since I have a quite clear idea about what I want it to look like. At the moment inspirational music is: French electro (ed banger) and "bob hund" to mention a Swedish band which is reflected in my photos.
Stefan Buchner
website http://www.dailymonster.com/
Music keeps me happy, and I work better when I’m happy. It’s that simple. There’s no direct correlation between the music I listen to and the work I do. My typography and illustration look the same with AC/DC as it does with Sibelius (the Finnish Angus Young.) What does inspire me is hearing about the making of my favorite music--- producers and artists breaking things down track by track, explaining effects, and their artistic decisions, comparing demos to the finished piece. That immediately makes me think how I can apply their sonic ideas to paper.
Elena Savitskaya
website http://elenasavitskaya.com/
blog http://designwithathought.com/
I generally listen to old jazz and soul, Sinatra, Fitzgerald, Nat Cole King etc... Some Gotan Project does it sometimes as well. Basically, anything that put's my mind in the right place. I don't enjoy overpowering music as it's more distracting, than enjoyable. Music gives me that little extra kick on the back side that you sometimes need to create something that you're proud of. I think "New York, New York" is one of the best songs for self motivation for any age and taste.
Chuck Anderson
website http://www.nopattern.com/
blog http://www.thebrilliance.com/
Music inspires me as I work in countless ways. I tend to listen to a lot of loud hardcore and metal when I work as its the kind of music I enjoy the most, bands like Botch, Isis, Enslaved, The Austerity Program, etc. However, you can't just listen to stuff like that nonstop all day, so sometimes if I need to sit down and focus for a long time, especially at night, I'll put on more chill stuff like David Bazan, Bon Iver, or Beach House. Really depends on my mood, but regardless, music is that thing that keeps your mind well-oiled while you focus and create. I like to keep it consistent and listen to full albums most of the time, but sometimes I'll throw it on shuffle just for fun and end up with Sufjan Stevens, Pig Destroyer, Jay-Z, and Fugazi in the same mix, which seems a little odd and kind of hilarious, but it keeps it interesting. Music has everything and nothing to do with my work - on one hand it is ever-present as I work, on the other hand, what I have on at the moment doesn't always directly influence what I'm creating, just keeps my mind sharp and occupied.
Wojciech Pijecki aka Zero Bound
website http://www.behance.net/zerobound
There are plenty of music generes that I listen to, while designing. It's a pretty much wide variety, starting from Pop to Nu-metal. Mostly, if the design is a quite fast treatment like some simple layout etc. then I don't pay much of attention for music, I just work like a machine and the radio is somekind of background.
But in the other cases, when I work on something big, an illustration with its own mood, music is a great helper. It influences your work dynamics, especially good rock bits. They not only can give you a great inspiration but also strength to work.
Lately I'm working on a project connected with nature, and this just enforces to listen to something calming. For this particular example I'm listen to instrumental rock band which is called Mogwai. All the piano parts and smooth clean guitars sound, put my mind inside my project. Like I'm totally connected. So if I match the right song with project theme, then the work just flows. And it's important to work at night, to get into this.
Alex Cornell
website http://www.alexcornell.com/
blog http://blog.iso50.com/author/alex/
As I musician, I take the music I listen to while designing very seriously. Every time I sit down I have to think for a while about what kind of music needs to accompany the workflow. If it's early in the design process, I need something really calm and driving -- nothing too prominent that might interrupt conceptual thinking. Usually electronica works best at this stage. When things get closer to the end, and the concept is locked in, I like to BLAST either crazy techno or really heavy rock. The funny thing is, when I'm not designing, I listen to a completely different type of music.
Nikolay, from Nu Fabric
website http://nufabric.org/
We live in a digital world. We're surrounded by a lot of sounds and visual objects nearly every second in our daily life. We walk in a busy street, instead of looking and seeing people and communicate with them using our bodies, we see ads and billboards, we hear the sound of the city, neither beautiful or disturbing it is.
Music gives us a pleasant escape from all the surroundings that disturbs our harmony or chaos. When in need of a silence and calmness, we won't put ear plugs, but the earphones. Lyrically, we associate the things we hear with a feeling we have felt or we would love to feel.
That's the absurd of the nowadays — When in need of a silence, it's the music that gives you that silence.
Speaking of the music itself, I'm currently obsessed with the Vampire Weekend's Contra and a lot of Madlib stuff recently.
Eduardo Recife
website http://www.eduardorecife.com/
website http://www.misprintedtype.com/v4/
Music is my fuel during most of the day. It inspires me in ways that I cannot describe. Even though I work with graphics I always said that nothing compares the power of music to reach a soul. I listen to all sorts of music and today I listen to some music that I thought I would never surrender to... But I also listen to a lot of indie rock, folk, bands. Some of the bands that are on my playlist lately are: Blind Pilot, The Go Find, Metronomy, Fleet Foxes, Jeff Buckley, Kings of Convenience, and a whole bunch of Sweden bands....
Joan Charmant
http://www.joancharmant.com/
I'm not using music as an inspiration. Music brings me back to the real world.
I find that many areas needs a lot of concentration like browsing for the right source, assessing if I'm on the right track, taking a step back to look at the image in a new light, etc. If I listen to music during these steps, my mind gets carried away and I make wrong decisions. I currently use music only to cover the annoying sound of my PC ventilator and surroundings. Even then, distinctive lyrics are a no-no, and I go for electro-jazz instrumentals. I'm considering buying noise-cancelling headphones to get perfect silence and immerse completely in the world where the image I'm designing is coming from. Still, one thing I would like to try in the future is to get some tracks of natural sounds, like birds or whales, and use them lightly during the purely artistic steps.
Nik Ainley
website http://www.shinybinary.com/
I don't know why it is but I generally find music can only keep my occupied for a short time, and usually I'll be working for long periods without a break. Partly it's getting over interested and fiddling with the playlists and being reminded of other songs I want to hear. I think it's also down to not having enough music I want to listen to at any one point to match the hours I work. I'll just end up listening to the same stuff over and over again which will annoy me and consequently distract me. I could listen to the radio or some online equivalent, but again it's only a matter of time before I get songs I don't want and am back to playlist fiddling.
I think music is almost too much stimulation for me while working. It's almost too important. If it's good, I get in to it too much and forget about work. If it's bad I really notice it and have to change it. I need something that can fit into the background and I find that hard with music.
Designers Music com
Design & music go hand in hand. Great design needs great music, and DesignersMusic is all about helping you find new inspration. Find out what other designers are listening to, sort music by job types and share that awesome band no one else has heard of. Stop reading and get started!
We'd love to discuss everything with you guys more, so just leave a comment - Aloa
