More about: Dutch Design Week

There’s no denying that music and design are inextricably linked, and that through having an appreciation for one, your experience of the other is consequently enhanced. Gigwise headed to Dutch Design week at the tail end of last month, and was intent on writing a live review piece about the brilliant music we were planning to catch at Dutch Design Week Music Festival. We did indeed achieve our goal of seeing some very inspiring music (more of that later), yet we also returned with a fresh perspective on the music business.

Much like the music industry showcases such as The Great Escape or Sound City, Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven presents the best in new design and innovation. After spending the week wandering through these inspiring spaces and going to gigs in the evenings, we naturally began to wonder how all this futuristic innovation could be linked to, and adopted by, the music industry. During the week we spent in Eindhoven, we couldn’t help but feel that the link between the two was not as tangible and strong on the surface as it potentially could be: for starters, the gigs only took place in the evening, and were in completely separate venues to those of the design events.

This got us thinking: how can we expect design and music to have an intersectional approach, if they’re never given the opportunity to exist in the same room? What could have happened if these art forms were integrated? What could this mean? How could it have changed, or elevated the narrative of the other? As much as music influences design, it would be amazing to see music push further than just simply providing the soundtrack to this creative innovation. We need to continue asking these questions: curiosity is the key to creativity as both musicians and designers know all too well.

Ultimately, the ethos of these young designers is definitely not limited to the world of design. Their insight and creative thought processes are hugely valuable for the music industry - as the saying goes, nothing is ever created in a vacuum. We need these minds at the decision making tables, FAST, if music is going to be a sustainable and viable industry. These young designers will undoubtedly shape our collective future - let them inspire us to shape our music industry, so that we can utilise the powerful platform that music has, as the mouthpiece for a generation. These designers specialise in community, engagement, and providing creative solutions for worldwide issues: let’s join forces - what would be the downside?

Often, it feels like we’re playing catch up with new technologies, letting their monumental developments shape our industry; these designers would help us adapt to changes in tech with ease and grace - instead of music industry execs scrabbling at numbers and scratching their heads. Take streaming for example, after the cataclysmic adoption of Napster, the music industry had to dramatically reshuffle the whole structure in order to stay viable. What would happen if it was the other way round? What if the music industry could be the one to shape the future, invent the possibilities, influence how design is manifested?

That’s not to say that music is not innovative in itself - reflecting the design festival’s non-commercial ethos, the music festival arm of DDW showcased the best alternative music from all corners of the earth, with inspiring performances from the likes of the ever-theatrical, ever stunning Walt Disco, crazily brilliant Dutch collective Personal Trainer, cosmic Russian group Gnoomes whose electrifyingly pulsating sounds shook the very walls of Stroomhuis, transporting the audience to a tinfoil-covered alternate reality, electronic-meets-pop-meets-techno-house group Meetsysteem from Amsterdam, and the goosebump-inducing Just Mustard. It was just strikingly hard not to notice the gaping disconnect between the music and the design, when it was all in the same city at the same time, waiting to intertwine - the combined potential is seemingly still untapped…

One thing is for sure: design, and the young designers practicing it, will prove integral in shaping a sustainable and inspiring future for the music business, and the sooner the major labels and corporations start realising this, the better. An intersectional approach to innovation is necessary: it can become so easy to get so deep into your own bubble, asking questions within our specialities, insulating ourselves from outside solutions and forming a dangerous echo chamber. Let’s cast our eyes upward, keep questioning, keep learning. Could it be that the future of design is music, and the future of music…is design? Nobody knows the answers, but that shouldn’t stop us from asking the questions.

More about: Dutch Design Week