Appendices

Appendix 1. Interview over Instagram DM with Bill Green (@HANDSOUTOFPOCKETS), Artist.

Hi Bill, can you give me an introduction of who you are? How would you describe your creative practice/what you do?

BG: Hey! Yes I’m Bill, I’m an artist.

You’ve recently worked with the band ‘girlfriends’ – can you tell me a little bit about this project?

BG: I got recommended as an artist by Ali Mullin who is Travis Mills girlfriend. I was initially going to just do their album cover but they asked me after if I would be their creative director and do the rollout of their album (e)motion sickness.

Were you familiar with their sound before working with them?

BG: I was familiar to what kind of music they did but didn’t really listen to it a lot before working with them.

Visuals and music often reflect one another - what elements of the album (e)motion sickness, you were the creative director behind would you say predominantly influenced your creative response?

BG: They had sent me the album and I would listen to it over and over again, they provided rough guidelines of what they wanted visually. We had a few revisions to the cover and with the both of us we made something I would’ve never made. It’s a good thing about working with a client that knows what they want as they push you to an outcome you would’ve never considered.

You were responsible for the creative direction of their physical CD, - how important is it to you, as a consumer of music yourself in keeping alive these physical assets like CD’s in an age where streaming services and social media dominate the way we experience music nowadays?

BG: I think it’s cool to have a physical item come out of something like this, it’s something to show my grandma to show her they are a real band. Hopefully it’s special to the people that bought it.

Do you feel there is an expectation for artists nowadays to produce additional forms of visual content (other than an album cover or music video) to support their sound, and if so why might this be?

When looking for new music yourself, how important to you is the initial visual of a music project? Might this dictate if you choose to take the time to listen or not?

(Two questions answered together)

BG: My role was to do the entire rollout so promotional pieces to the Spotify canvas.

I think it’s cool, a lot of the time I listen to a song just because of the cover and the artists’ overall image. Imagery is important, there’s no point being an artist hiding great songs behind lame covers.

And finally, what is the end goal for you? You have already achieved great success working with big names in the music industry so early into your career. Is there anything you aspire to achieve and are excited by as creative in the music industry?

BG: I don’t have an end goal.

Thank you for taking the time to chat to me Bill – I really appreciate it.

BG: Thank you! I hope those will be useful!

Appendix 2. Email interview with Jonny Carr, Videographer, Motion Designer and Drone Operator.

Hi Jonny,

Thanks again for being involved. See Questions below.

Could you tell me a little bit about who you are? How would you describe your creative practice/what you do?

JC: Hey Berenice! I would class myself primarily as a motion designer, but I also work in videography and drone operation - basically all things moving image! I freelanced alongside my uni degree and am now working for a studio called INK in London with a heavy focus on CG/3D motion design :)

An area of practice you specialise in is Motion Design and you’ve worked on a few exciting projects within the music industry through this medium. What excites you about this practice and how it can be applied to music?

JC: Motion has always stood out to me as a more engaging practice compared to traditional graphic design/print media, I think you get the best of both worlds: you can have a really beautiful frame with all the traditional design principles taken into account (composition, balance, colour etc.) but if it moves and has a great soundtrack it's always a bonus in my opinion, and just elevates it to the next level! I think advertisers are already beginning to see that and the industry is moving in that direction. Every social media platform is moving towards motion, Instagram have been really pushing their 'reels' over the last couple of years even though it was originally supposed to be an app for photography!

Music and sound design are really important in the motion world, and some people say sound design is 50% of a video, good sound design can make or break a motion piece but if the visuals and sound work together it makes the end result really engaging.

You’ve recently worked with GRAFIX creating the music video for one of his recent singles, congratulations - what do you feel your visual content/creative input adds the sound?

JC: Thank you! It was a wicked project to work on, I had to pitch an idea to Hospital for them to go through with it and I explained in the proposal that I wanted to make a piece that responded to the audio. I think that's what made them commission it in the end - they really liked the idea that the energy of the song would be reflected in the visuals with heavier glitches and distortions during the drops and more subtle imagery during the quieter sections. I didn't want the visuals to distract or take away from the music so by using the audio to drive what was happening on screen we were able to make the whole piece about the music and that was definitely an important factor!

You’ve worked with Liquescent Events in Birmingham producing audio reactive visuals for some of their drum and base events. Do you feel this technology enhances the listening experience for an audience and if so why?

JC: Yeah I definitely do! I suppose concerts and raves stimulate an audience auditorily with the music, and adding motion content for them to watch on screen is creating visual stimulation at the same time, which might not have been there before. If the visuals and audio complement each other, it makes the experience feel really immersive (in my opinion) because all these different simulations just feel like they roll into one experience, it's really interesting to me!

Do you think an audience is more likely to engage with a piece of motion content made for a song, like the work you created for Grafix and Liquescent Events over a static visual instead and if so why might this be?

JC: I definitely think so, adding motion unlocks so many new ways to tell stories and I think successful music videos can make you listen to a song in a totally different way because artists are able to direct the project and use it as a tool to explain to an audience, 'This is what the song is really about', or 'This is what the song is supposed to make you think/feel'. Sometimes it's hard to portray some of those themes with just audio.

When looking for new music yourself, how important to you is the overall visual image of a music project? Might this dictate if you choose to take the time to listen or not?

JC: Yes definitely, I've clicked on thumbnails of music videos that look cool and have definitely been swayed by cool album covers and promotional material. It's always nice when the surrounding artwork reflects the content of the music too. I'm a big fan of The Streets and listen mainly on Spotify, but I took the time to buy 'original pirate material' on vinyl just because It's a really beautiful object in my opinion and the cover/artwork is such a perfect representation of what the music is all about. I love it!

Where do you think innovative graphic design + advances in technology might lead the music industry in the future? No answer is too crazy.

JC: I'm constantly wondering about this, VR/AR are definitely going to make a big impact, I'd recommend chatting to Jonny Griffiths about this because he's a VR wizard and knows a lot more than I do haha! There have already been several virtual music concerts (I think Justin Bieber did one?) which might give an indication of where the music industry might be heading as people get used to the WFH life. Advances in AI are also undoubtedly going to shape the future of the industry. The algorithms are getting stronger and stronger so music companies are able to analyse their audiences and recommend tracks based on that data (like Spotify's 'discover weekly').

Music created by AI is already starting to gain traction which seems crazy and a bit dystopian (check out the story of FN Meka if you haven't already!) and AIs like Dall-e 2 and midjourney are also able to generate artwork without much human input - hopefully this will become a powerful tool rather than something that puts artists/designers out of business! But I hope we are able to retain the human side of things and not become too heavily focused on algorithms and data. Good ideas and innovative work should always be the priority!

Hope that helps, would love to read the dissertation when it's finished!

Best wishes

Jonny

Appendix 3. Email interview with Andrew Evan, Creative Director and Graphic Designer within the music industry.

Andrew works with successful artists in the music industry including COIN, Arlie, Amy Allen and more.

Hi Andrew! Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. Could you tell me a little bit about who you are? How would you describe your creative practice/what you do?

AE: Currently, I am a creative director which umbrellas one of my main roles as a graphic designer. Ever since I quit sports in high school after my brother gave me a guitar, I’ve been pursuing the arts ever since. Music and writing were the portals to my “creative spirit”, if you will. I’m an endlessly curious person and my broad range of curiosities has led me down many creative pursuits, from writing and producing music to acting to cooking and the culinary arts. In a strange way, design is the culmination of what all of those endeavors led me to.

How did you get into working as a graphic designer in the music sector?

AE: Since high school I was mostly interested in writing and recording music, but in that pursuit, graphic design was a hobby I also had and those skills came in very handy when my band or friends bands needed merch, show posters, or album artwork. For a long time, all the way through college, I was the person that everyone came to for design needs, and it really still just remained a hobby at that point, but I was slowly developing a bit of a style without even realizing it I guess. When I moved to Nashville for college, by natural association with people really taking their music careers seriously and finding success, I just continued to be called on to design things for people to make them look more “legit”. I often joke that I am a graphic designer against my own will. But really, I am very grateful that it became a career.

As a creative director, where does your creative process start? What influences you the most in translating sound?

AE: It starts, as most creative pursuits, with how the music (or the product) makes me feel. That feeling then inspires all the ideas within me for the how music might “look”. Where the real fun in creative direction is for me, is the collaborative effort and influence - taking how other creatives (with other specific talents) hear and feel the music, how they interpret it and through collaborative efforts, create a world in which the music lives. I think a lot of direction is just providing context, a framework, and a though-line in which the music, the product, the brand exists.

I think what excites me and influences my work the most, is researching and finding things that may seem completely unrelated and finding ways to connect it to the music. It stems from a deeper held belief that all things are connected, no matter how separate or unrelated things they may seem.

Do you think having a visual asset alongside a song is important? For example, the artwork, a Spotify canvas etc. If so why?

AE: To be honest I often tell people, as counterintuitive as it seems, that visual assets really aren’t that important alongside music - in a sense it’s just another way to keep people engaged. Music is so powerful on its own that visual assets as just supplementary. In a sense its like saying, “this Picasso piece is quite nice, but I would enjoy it a lot more if Chopin were playing in the background.” And sure, maybe so, but it doesn’t need the music.

To play devils advocate with myself, I would also say that I think visual assets paired with music, in the way that we consume it today, just makes it more fun and engaging. I think a lot of people really look forward to the visual side of the music of their favourite artists because it provides a new framework or context like I mentioned, of the world in which the music lives. I think in many ways design is a lot more about marketing than ‘art’, not that the two worlds can’t collide, but my goal with designs being be paired with music is to make something timeless that serves the music, not distracts from it - and of course that gets attention so that people want to hear it based on the visual. Clearly I am conflicted on the matter

Do you think with the likes of sharing platforms and social media, there is an expectation for musicians to push more innovative content to their audience?

AE: Yes. It’s almost like the visual aspect of music is more important in terms of engagement simply because in many ways today, you see the music before you hear it. Quite often artists will tease the release of music with visual elements for days, weeks, sometimes months before you get to hear a song. This is the attention-economy after allwhich means garnering attention from all 5 senses.

An example of this which really stands out to me is the creative direction and execution of the music video for ‘Cutie’. In so many ways this video goes beyond your traditional artists’ performance of a track. There are so many levels and multi-facet design considerations from 3D rendering to a range of different immersive environments in which the viewer is thrown into. Why is it important for you to go that extra mile artistically?

AE; Early on in the development of the concept and campaign, we gave ourselves parameters for the brand criteria. So the goal with everything we created was to be BOLD, PLAYFUL, OPTIMISTIC, UNIVERSAL, and UNCANNY. If we felt any of these parameters were missing, it was a helpful way for us to push the boundaries a little further and challenge ourselves to make something that much more interesting.

I think with that music video particularly, we wanted to just make something that was visually fun to watch and not think too much about what it ‘means’. Certainly there are some themes within that video that connect to the concept of their Uncanny Valley album, but I think our approach was exactly what you said - going beyond the traditional performance. Louis Browne, the director, was pivotal in helping us accomplish the look and feel and energy of that video. It’s a great example of what I mentioned earlier about collaborative effort - it really allows you to create something much more exciting and extravagant than you could create on your own.

I discovered one of my favourite bands, COIN after being drawn to the aesthetic you created for them during the ‘Dreamland’ era, and continue to reflect in their releases since. Is there an artist for you which you discovered and are now a fan of due to their visual image.

AE: Ryoji Ikeda! He was a major influence on some of the visual aspects of Uncanny Valley. Chase (lead singer) and I really geek out over his stuff. He’s both a sound and visual artist. I stumbled across his work in my initial research for inspiration and it was definitely his visuals that grabbed me before I knew anything about his other work. It’s a mastery of minimalism. Everything he makes just feels like the future.

And finally, I’m seeing COIN perform in Birmingham in November, should I expect to see some super funky live visuals to support the set?

AE: Absolutely. This is definitely COIN’s best live show yet on all fronts. I think you’ll very much enjoy the visuals.