What designers can learn from collaboration in the music industry
“I love to hear a choir. I love the humanity to see the faces of real people devoting themselves to a piece of music. I like the teamwork. It makes me feel optimistic about the human race when I see them cooperating like that.” — Paul McCartney
The digitalization of the music industry has allowed more people to collaborate on potentially delivering better results. Can collaborative smarts in the music industry assist with creativity in the design field? The music industry has universal appeal because it dovetails with many secondary creative fields (TV, movies, theater, and advertising).
Many of the creative processes in the fast-changing music industry may be relevant in boosting productivity in the design industry. It is said that collaboration is more effective at making good music than an old ‘lone artist’; it produces better results. A song can be written by a team of four or five creative collaborators over a single 6–8 hour period. Some creative workshops result in something special: a hit.
In music, it is crucial to collaborate with the right specialists to fuel the necessary creativity; planning is paramount to meet the release date. If we were to look at the music industry, the five take-outs, which could be applied to design are:
The key attribute for a songwriting session is to set the tone for personal alignment and teamwork. The team follows a predefined vision that exists but is often unspoken to create the highest quality outputs. The mature music professional will discard any gimmicks that are not adding real value. As German designer Dieter Rams said:
"One of the most significant design principles is to omit the unimportant to emphasize the important."
Design parameters are established early on in a musical track with all the stakeholders: the artists, writers, producers and the record label. The key to successful outcomes is a collaboration where everyone plays to their strengths. The two-person creative and fruitful partnership phenomenon is well known. Paul McCartney still talks passionately today about his early collaborations with John Lennon. It was something special.
I love the story of McCartney and Lennon bumping into The Rolling Stones on Charing Cross Road in London. They agreed to write them a hit song immediately in a nearby studio, and ‘I Wanna be your Man’ became the Rolling Stone’s first Top 20 hit in 1963. Apparently, this act of songwriting prowess inspired the Stones to start writing their own material! (1) Collaboration between artists continues to shine today. 41% of the current Billboard Hot 100 is a collaboration between different artists. (2)
John Lennon and Paul McCartney (Image Source: www.zumic.com)
Specialized and diverse teams yield better creative outputs. In the music industry, each of these teams works in different phases on the track. In the beginning, there is a focused team that write the song. Over one or two days, another group mixes the musical track. The mastering work typically takes a day before the video is shot with the recording artist. A music video is usually shot over one week.
As with architecture and design, the project’s success is about a ‘whole process system’. This means each phase of the creative endeavor is considered holistically: writing, editing, mastering, video shooting and marketing. The whole team need to be cognizant of the agreed creative vision. Dieters Rams has stated that good design hinges on collaboration:
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"We designers, we don’t work in a vacuum. We need business people. We are not the fine artists we are often confused with."
Also, we should not forget the human dimension in a fruitful collaboration. Recently, the British musician Harry Styles talked about the need to feel safe in his creative, collaborative environment. In his creative ‘safe zone’, Styles produces his best music, and makes it ‘highly personal’.(3) The legendary Brazilian modernist architect, Oscar Niemeyer, explained collaboration as: ‘I work alone in defining an architectural proposition and then hand it over to friends to develop.’
Digitalization has helped the music industry grow. Recent data from the IFPI show that the music industry revenue has increased annually by over 9%, thanks to online streaming services. (4) Designers will continue to use the tried and tested techniques to produce their best work. But how can digital interfaces help them get closer to the user’s needs?
Summary
Collaboration is now occurring increasingly on digital interfaces such as video conferencing. However, the high-value creative sessions in the music industry are often in person, face to face. The key learning from the music industry involves having the right people, making sufficient time for flow, invest in the whole process, including digital and focusing on value add and not gimmicks. Lennon and McCartney’s colossal success had a formula for creativity, which was team-centric. It is also perhaps through these procedures that great design can be delivered collaboratively. In the music industry, collaboration has increased and now makes a significant part of charts such as Billboard Hot 100. We may yet see more collaboration between different designers and perhaps from various disciplines. The music industry has been through a sales decline during the earlier phases of digitalization, but on-stream services are now enabling growth. Like in some other creative endeavors, people can work for free at the beginning while writing a track. However, if this ‘creative freethinking’ works, it eventuates in a hit and perhaps even a cultural legacy. This is also what we want from our designs, whether they are products, services, buildings or cities.
This article was originally published by UX Collective in June 2021.
Notes:
2. Billboard Hot 100, 23 May 2020.
3. Sunday Magazine, 15 March 2020, pp 8–10.
4. IFPI Global Music Report, 2019.