Visually the aesthetic component of digital music is in the dark ages and shows no sign of embracing the future. Despite all sorts of attempts at fancy innovation, the visual interaction that people are actually having on a daily basis with music on line is pretty terrible. My iTunes is full of badly tagged MP#’s from bands I have no empotional connection with or recollection of once I’ve shuffled off elsewhere. If I’m lucky each track has a postage stamp-sized image of what the CD used to look like in the real world. More often than not this luxury is denied to me. I am stuck with nothing but a line of text. I might have an online visual relationship with a website, blog or music player but rarely with an artist. Except when I watch music videos on YouTube, which is just a twenty-first-century MTV with a horrible window around it full of chatter from people telling me how awesome/lame the track is. Surely we can do better.
Archives
The future of consumption…
Our future role as the interpreters and propagators of music and design is to create stimulating interactions; as with so many areas of our contemporary practice, we now need to integrate interaction design with visual design if we are going to move forward. It doesn’t take Steve Jobs to tell you that pretty coon we are all going to have continuous hi-res superfast broadband and will be able to stream anything we want in real time straight to our hardware device of choice. This is the future scenario of consumption.
Product is dead…
It is time to accept that product is dead. Yes, there will always be the hardcore geek element that will slobber over high-end limited edition releases, and speaking as one of them I know the desire for heavyweight vinyl and complicated packaging will be insatiable. But be under no illusion that this is but a tiny contingent of dysfunctional Luddites and for the vast majority of people the shiny tap labeled ‘unlimited free new music’ on the interweb is now all they will ever need.
MDA Bridge to a Cure Ride Sketches
Sketches and drawings for the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s Bridge to a Cure Ride.
MDA Bridge To A Cure Ride
Sketch for the MDA Bridge to a cure ride. This is pretty close to the final product.
Check out the final product and brochure on my portfolio site.
The future of music is…
Red. No, green. Blue?
If only it was that easy, but in fact aesthetically, rhythmically, structurally, tonally, it’s impossible to say what the future of music will sound like. Music will be whatever composers want it to be. Music will be all sorts. It’s as much informed by the desires of musicians as their cultures , perspectives and experiences. What is and was made in China can be very different to what’s made in London. There was a time when cultural influence was purely geographic, but in this age of web 2.0 or whatever web version we are in, the borders are shifting. But will a border less time come? I suspect the power of “one voice” won’t completely engulf us all. Somewhere out there will be a group of people on this planet oblivious to the character of hip-hop and techno, Beethoven and grime. But wherever these impervious ears may reside, they will more than likely make and play music. We want music. It’s essential to most of us, wherever we are, and we listen to it, within our shiny white headphones, while we’re on our way there. A cursory glance at MySpace, a step into any classroom, and you’ll find musicians, millions of them. Their tools may differ, be it guitar or Garageband, but they’re making it, recording it and they’re getting it online. They’re using computers to share and they’re sharing it with their immediate circle – their friends and family. It’s now and it’s the future, a virtual seat by the campfire, the relatives around the parlour piano having a singsong, it’s folk music.
Alessandra Ambrosio
Super sexy. The white text laid over the dress and legs of Ms. Ambrosio make it difficult to read. You have to get beyond the sexy back lit, short skirt and attempt to concentrate on the text a as she distracts from whatever it was that you were doing. You’ll probably remember reading this.
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Most professional designers are too serious about their work and their lives. Why does life have to be such a chore?
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There’s no real textbook answer to how type should be used on the web, so a lot is either instinct or trial and error.
God is in the details
You need to pay attention to to the details because that’s where one finds the difference between enlightenment and disappointment. Know your history. Know your tools. Know your customers. Know your goal.