Mon, 01 Feb 2010 10:30:33 +0000

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Kudos to St. Bride Library to set up great talks and conferences with interesting topics. Become a friend of St. Brides.

Of course it’s all due to the presenters if they can make it an exceptional event by providing new inspiration for the eager audience. The topic “Design for Music” definitely had this potential. Sadly half of the presenters stayed comfortably within the nostalgia about the 12″ cover sleeve instead of concentrating on offering new visions and thoughts for the design in music in the digital web 2.0 era.

• Discussion panel alas it wasn’t a discussion at all. More a retrospective.

Signposting – Not a cultural momentum anymore?

• Adrian Shaughnessy

This became quite obvious with the first presenter Adrian Shaughnessy, well known for his long career within music design. He has written several books about cover art, trying to preserve the art and beauty of album covers and its creators.

He seemed to have no expectations anymore towards visualisations for music in the digital web 2.0 age. His conclusion seems to be that there is no need for elaborous visualisations anymore. We can now purely concentrate on the music itself. Additionally, he points out, music “used” to transport opinions on social, political and cultural agendas. It used to provide the soundtrack for generations.  But as music and visualisation go in seperate ways now, it kind of lost its impact to support opinions and lifestyles, he argues.

This opinion seems to me to be a generation thing. In the 60s and 70s album covers were used as a badge of identification and belonging. The 12″ canvas played such an important role in the life of many in their 30s, 40s and 50s. It’s not easy for them to come up with new visions of how to create an experience any different to that of a record sleeve. But…

12″ canvas = After all it’s just a medium/means of transport

• Gerard Saint of Big Active and realistic views of the music bizz

In contrast to Adrian’s talk, Gerard Saint, Creative Director of Big Active, explains why now is a great time for design and music, with some high-profile examples: Beck; Goldfrapp; Basement Jaxx; Keane; The Enemy. He talks about the need of outstanding visualisations for integrated ad-campaigns, that need to work on multiple platforms from housewalls to online shops to surfaces on portable musicplayers, etc.

I couldn’t agree more with him. When I was writing my dissertation about “Music Design Goes iPod”, I argued that the visualisation of music is far from being over and will play an even more important role in the future of digitalized music. The fundamental role of (graphic) design is to create visual identities that make a generic looking album an individual looking album – recognizable, memorable – set apart from other visual identities. Furthermore the visual codes used within the creation give away a lot of clues what style of music or genre can be expected when deciding to listen to it. So, given the fact, that nowadays audience has to deal with millions of online tracks on offer, all visual help to browse and choose quickly is even more important now than it used to be in former days of the music industry. I predict that we will see even more imagery and visuals in the near future and more interesting context where we find them.

Retro Galore – Everyone has a memory!

What I found interesting about Gerard Saint’s talk was, that actually all shown artwork deals with visual remixes of the past, using a lot of 60s photography and 80s style as well as 50s and 60s illustrations. I tried to get an answer from Gerard Saint, why he thinks, everything is retro at the moment. Are we stuck? Still in the remixing postmodernism? His short answer, as he was in a hurry: “Because people love it!” I guess he means, that the audiences feel at home with the retro styles. There are no real visions about the future, so it feels better do indulge in the past (ok my interpretation!). His answer was nevertheless a fabulous ad-man answer.

It will be interesting how we creatives continue with this (often already remixed) material of the past. Postmodernism galore or will there be something new soon? Is the plundering of the past and it’s constant remixed retro output the last answer? I don’t think/hope so.

“We shape our tools, and then our tools shape us.” (Marshall McLuhan)

• All is waves. Example by Karsten Schmidt.

Karsten Schmidt aka Toxi, one of the most inspiring presenters of this conference, might have an answer and a vision for this. Karsten is a new/old breed of designers that use code to create the tools in order to produce the art and sound, music and design they have in mind. Traditional tools limit them. Progress, they think, will come with new (individual) tools.

Karsten explained his view, that everything is waves and that we designers more or less deal with the perception of them. He argues that what we see is not an object like a circle anymore but that the form of the circle as a result of (mathematical) processes.

Traditional designers sometimes have a hard time to get their head around the underlying mathematics of things. Which is a shame, as the world becomes more and more complex and mathematics never lets you down, and is a secure constant to make sense out of complexity as Karsten tried to explain and adds that the more granular your variables are the more shapes you can create.

Karsten thinks, that as a designer you will need to be able to  programme code if you wanna create new tools for creations.  Not sure about this one. Tools don’t need to be made out of code. Analogue and/or mechanical selfmade/DIY tools can serve the same purpose.

I always like to hear his recommendations for further research. This time he recommended Benjamin Lee Whorf, who is widely known for his ideas about linguistic relativity, the hypothesis that language influences thought. Language, Thought and Reality: Selected Writings -> Amazon as well as the model of Synesthesia.

There is an underlying system in the concept of the world. Isn’t it?

• Presenters: Kate Moross, Tony Brook, Maria da Gandra, Karsten Schmidt

Similar to Karsten, Maria da Gandra refers to mathematics within music. The underlying but continously changing system, due to the knowledge and thinking of human kind throughout the centuries, seems to always comprise sound = colour = image/icon and how the relate to each other to make sense.

The De-Averaging effect in classical music

• The classic panel: Mike Dempsey, ?, Peter Quantrill

It was exciting to hear about the state of visualisation within classical music. Web 2.0 made it possible: Easier access to classical music and classical music on the go, yet the visual representation lags decades behind due to low budgets and traditional opinions on how it should be represented. It almost seems as if the responsible record companies/labels think of their audience as ultra-conservatives, stuck in the past, easily irritated by innovations.

Sounds like the perfect job for professional and passionate creatives, who know how to get the best out of small budgets! The job includes to understand the music and its audience in order to provide them with a solution that gives them extra satisfaction and/or extra suprises (isn’t it all about suprises?) to make it a memorable experience. Next time the user goes browsing he might recognize the visual language and without thinking clicks on it to have a closer look…

There’s a lot of energy and context in classical music that only waits to be brought to life by visual ideas. Not to mention all the by-products like concert leaflets and programmes, etc. which are in need of talented creatives, who know how to work out the details like how type should be set regarding the different lightening conditions in the opera or other concert halls.

Peter Quantrill, editorial manager of White Label Productions, critizised the fact that 95% of the designers don’t know the (classical) music they are designing for. If that’s the case, than I have to say, they don’t do a proper job which also consists of in depth research before the start of a project.

Someone from the audience pointed out that the similarities within the design for classical and electronic music are due to the fact, that the designers have not a lot of other information available and have to rely only on the music and its conductors. Information like singers, bands or lyrics are not available to give more clues about how to define the visualisation, so it often remains quite abstract.

I was asking myself if that really needs to be like this. What about more direct research about where, when and why, and in which historic context the music was written? What does the conductor of the music think? Could we invite a writer or poet to add additional context to it or do we give the audience the chance to create their own context? It is a challenge but I love challenges!

No compromises – Kate Moross follows her own vision!

• Kate (left) looks on while the older generations talk about the former days of music design and Barney Bubbles

It’s the second time I hear her talking and I’m still amazed by the energy, obvious talent and creativity of only 23yrs old Kate Moross. One of her favourite tasks is to create the visual representation of 12″ and 7″ vinyls. To be able to do this in an environment where the production costs of vinyls are climbing, whereas the demand for them decreases in favour to their digital counterparts, she even founded a label/studio. But that doesn’t mean she is naive or neglecting the obvious reality.

Instead she seems to have the right radar and knows exactly what to expect. Even better than some older presenters of this conference, who seemed to still mourn the good old days of vinyl sleeve designs, without seeing any other potential for them on the market. But Kate does. Her concept rotates around the tactile and limited editions, well crafted, full of surprises – in short: Must haves that a real music addict with an eye for design cannot walk by without wanting it.

She knows her niché setting well. The knowledge that there are still big archives of record collections around, that won’t disappear for a while, gives her the vision, that there will soon a new trade emerge – very similar to the art scene. Records/album covers will be dealt with and exhanged like artworks in the art world. Not as a mass medium anymore but as something of higher value, that needs to be preserved and collected.

• Simian Mobile Disco – Synthesise. Directed by Kate Moross & Alex Sushon.

The Life of Barney and Ronald

• Drawing by Barney Bubbles

Very interesting but soon a bit too much into nostalgia was the panel discussion about life story and legacy of Barney Bubbles legendary designer of music covers in an already industrialized and commercialized music industry. He died in the year the first Apple Macinthosh was introduced. Would he have loved to play around with it? One of his old friends Malcolm Garrett thinks yes. Contributors were: Bubbles biographer Paul Gorman, Malcolm Garrett (AIG), Gerard Saint (Big Active), Kate Moross and chair John Walters (Eye).

I really enjoyed Tony Brook’s (Spin) talk and presentation of Ronald Clyne’s creations while he was working for the label Folkways.

Passion. Revolution. Inspiration. Bla, bla …

• Nice jumper, Fred! Fred Deakin of Airside

Passion, Revolution, Inspiration, … Oh god, how often have I already heard those words when it comes to music design. And they are always spoken out the loudest, when the person saying them, doesn’t have something new to offer (think of Brody at OFFF2009). Sadly, this was the impression of Fred Deakin, who – at his best – has provided outstanding work for the club/dance culture and who still is a music fanatic. Soo far soo good. But shouting about revolution with no constructive visons or ideas is lame. Even more lame, when feeding the audience with old-fashioned and past information that don’t hold true anymore. You know, digital music images don’t have to be the size of a stamp anymore. Or very rarelly. Ever heard of the fact that computer screens, tv-screens and now even the iPhones in the form of iPads are getting bigger and bigger? That a whole new generation of technologists are working on solutions to create digital surfaces out of the box – in public spaces or architecture, etc?

• Sleeve art by Airside

One of the only things I liked about Fred Deakin’s talk was his thinking of the visual and surprising potential that this tiny moment, when you slide the record out of the cover sleeve,  offers.

There is always this tiny moment, where you can surprise the listener with something he doesn’t exprect. Why should this innovative thought stop when it comes to digital music? There is a clear potential with narrative sequences and the functions objects have. It’s all about the mysterious object.

• Visual excerpt of the triple CD box set The Triptych (released 2007 )

What wasn’t really further discussed unfortunately:

First of all, new potential, visions and ideas for he digital representation of music and the many new touchpoints, where lots of other ideas of how to reasonably use the space offline and online could make a big difference. We need  new innovative use cases for the new digital canvases. It’s not about less images but even more of them as well as a better use of type and content.

What about useful online services? Branding and visualisation don’t stop with “just” artworks. There needs to be creative ideas, how to use the core potential of the online world, which clearly is the use of online service tools like music finders, genre browsers, personalisation tools, etc.

The audience is not stupid and awaits quality and orginiality but needs to feel at home at first glance. Of course it’s getting harder. It’s always getting harder, that’s why the job of  being a creative is so exciting. You constantly have to find new ways and constantly have to deal with new circumstances.

I also honestly believe that the behaviour of music listening experience has not at all changed. It’s still about the experience, the browsing through the collection, reading about the artist and the context while listening, creating mix tapes and sometimes creating scrapbooks with the favourites.

Brendan Dawes pointed out in his bestseller Analog in – Digital Out, that we used to have different touchpoints in the past where we could show off our identity, our belonging. When someone visited us, they could see the books and records on the shelves and got a feeling, who we were, what we are interested in and if we are on the same page.

Our shelves are becoming more and more empty. The Web 2.0 revolution was made possible as the audience needed an online space where to exchange all this identification touchpoints digitally. An online space that allows us to imitate our physical book collection or record selection online for our friends to see.

Of course there are pros and cons about this change. We still have to learn how to deal with it, what are the dangers and what are the benefits.

If you think about the comeback of live concert vs. buying records. You can guess, that this was the reaction to the lack of visuals of the artist of the music. Music cannot really excist without visuals, we all have them when listening to it. We all want something that lets it being held in our memory to come back to it, whenever we want. To trigger our memories on it straight away.

Clearly not the end for visualizations for music.