Respect the Source Material

Here's where I feel particularly lucky and grateful as a designer. To have music as my source material.

It is important to take this content, the source material, seriously. In a perfect world, I receive rough mixes or if I am really fortunate, MP3s of the demos which, in the case of a singer songwriter, is mostly just vocals and guitar. The demos are the songs at their purest, before the producer sprinkles fairy dust over them and they become fleshed out and big. I like to sit with the songs for a few days while ideas start forming. If the material is inspiring, I can usually see pictures in my head right away. It's the time where I start sketching, doodling, poring over lyrics to pick out the vivid images and key phrases. I start to look for supplemental material, from 19th century schoolbook primers to modern comics/graphic novels for inspiration. This is a rewarding phase in the design process. Your mind is open to infinite possibilities.