Music in my sketches
An essay…
Long ago, I taught Advanced Typography at Iowa State University as an adjunct. The class was intended to explore the possibilities of typography as an expressive, graphic, abstract, and unconventional medium. Thus, the projects were quick—two weeks at most. The process was simple: get a topic, do research, get ideas, sketch in class, design it, and turn it in. One of these projects was exploring typographic responses to music. It was a fun one that usually led to many unexpected solutions. Sadly, I do not have images of those projects.
In my second year at South, I revisited that project. Many students in the class used the typographic expressions as images for album covers. Though I still have two in my office, I did not plan ahead to take photos for this post. The short of it, I had not taught this project in ten years.
I found myself remembering the project and thought it would be a good idea to revisit it. This time with one caveat: after choosing their artist or band, each student had to provide two songs to be played in class as a playlist. The instructions were simple—they still thought it was challenging—sketch for your artist or band using only type to what you hear. Intensify the effort when your music comes up and continue sketching following the flow of the music. They could use numbers, punctuation, caps, bold, italic, etc..
I thought it would be good to sketch along with them. I think I had more fun than they did. Granted, I had no single artist or band to sketch for. My participation was simply to respond to music with type but sometimes I explored shapes. Their sketches were very interesting nonetheless. They had doubts but we would talk about it and kept going.
Music, whether it has lyrics or not, has a way to guide the mind with graphics, images, words, and thoughts. I remember one day I was driving at night. The radio was on or my iPhone was playing. Either way, a song came up. The images I had in my mind were so strong, persistent, and intense that I was afraid of losing them. Did not consider stopping because it was dark. But the images would not let go of me until I designed something with them. No, it did not turn out to be a great or super fabulous design. To an extent, the quality of the images are irrelevant. It was the compelling need to do something with the images that intrigued me.
In 2020, journalist Tori DeAngelis wrote an article titled Music’s Power Over Our Brains. The article discusses how practicing music enhances not only the skills needed to play an instrument, but how it also enhances cognitive performance in other areas as well. The same is true about listening to music. Though scientists seem to be split on whether music enhances creativity or not, they all seem to agree that music improves mood, and in turn it improves productivity. But, not all music works the same way and much of its positive effects rely on preferences and the type of work one is engaged in while listening. Music therapist Dr. Kimberly Sena Moore recommends creating playlists according to both preferences and tasks at hand. Though she recommends avoiding lyrics as the brain will want to process the words.
In class we had both. Songs with lyrics and without lyrics. The difference between my students’ sketches and mine were vast. They were concerned about their artist or band while I was only concerned with having fun and letting loose. They had words for me but I assured them my responses were focused on letting the music guide me, lyrics or not. Because I did not yet secure permission from my students to share their sketches here, I am not able to show them. But I can share mine and later on, I will share theirs.
The music they played was very unfamiliar to me. I rarely listen to music of these times. So, to me it was all new. But there were songs that captured me and while Dr. Moore is right, the brain wants to process the words, I used that to my advantage and incorporated the words in my visual responses. This is an exercise I truly enjoy because the music frees me from overthinking about what to do. I also used a pen to avoid erasing. Below are my sketches.
"I think I had more fun than they did." :)
I always love reading what you've been up to. Taking your class in college is why I have a billion logo sketches spread across my desk at work!