Graphic Sound: Music at Work
by Hector Jaime
"You will always do your best work if you listen to music you like while you work."
—David Carson, CMYK Magazine, Vol. 53
I find Carson's statement to be true, which is why music in the office can sometimes be the bane of my existence. Someone will be blasting Iron Maiden (never happens), I'm executing some killer designs (sometimes happens), then somebody decides to play some electronic dance music (often happens), and I am done for.
Much can be said about the connection between design and music, or work productivity and music in general. Research shows that listening to music helps with creativity because of the amount of activity it fires up in my brain. If I'm extra lucky, I'll get to work on ads or design projects that focus primarily on music, like the below examples of ads we recently created at Flite for Sony:
The simple fact is that certain music puts me in a good mood, which means my designs will turn out better or at the very least, I will enjoy the process more. I believe this is true for my fellow designers here at Flite's Creative Lab, so I've asked them to submit the names of songs they listen to while designing in order to create the perfect design mix tape (see above). I'll let them describe why they listen to these songs. Me, I just like noisy rock and roll. Instrumental music also helps. Sometimes I prefer silence. What about you? What music inspires you to be creative? Or would you rather not listen to music while you work? We're dying to know.
Notes and further reading
Rhapsody, Sony, the Vidal Partnership and MTV have used the Flite platform to create ads focusing on music. To find out more contact us.
Electronic music is generally not my cup of tea, but for a good article about the connection between design and digital music, check out fastcodesign.com.
More in line with my music taste, here is a great article from Design Observer on the visual aesthetics of heavy metal.
David Carson's work for Raygun revolutionized print graphic design. I'm hoping the soon to be released iPad version of Raygun will do the same for digital design. We can at least expect it to look different from everything else on the web.
The music used in the Creative Lab Mix retains the copyright of its respective owner.