Sound Visualization

Dream of You – Chungha (with R3Hab)

My thought process behind my design was visualizing parts of the music as lines and seeing what shapes/paths they would take as the song progressed. I had three main focal points in my design, which were each inspired by an element of the song. The bass is very sharp and short, which I interpreted as zig-zag lines. Since the bass runs throughout the entire song, I made the zigzag lines take up the whole page from one side to the other. I employed the Gestalt principle of continuity, especially when the zigzag breaks in the middle. The letters in the middle are supposed to show the chorus, where she sings “don’t make me” repeatedly in a circle. However, there are breaks between each “don’t make me” and I wanted that to be represented by the incomplete circles, which were supported by the Gestalt principle of closure. Finally, I wanted something to connect these two polar opposite concepts together and represent the rest of the song. I thought that wavy lines would be good for this, since it incorporates both elements, with smooth lines that have sharper deviations. I put them on the edges of the page to balance the other things on the page and to show that this fluidity is constant and appears within the whole song.

I brainstormed a few ideas in doodles before reaching one that I wanted to create in illustrator. I made a very simple design with the basic concepts I wanted and showed it to Professor Ian. He suggested that I add a set of lines to break the harsh movement that was going from top left to bottom right. I then added a set of parallel wavy lines, but then he suggested that I either change them to straight lines with letters or abstract wavy lines. I went with the latter because I thought it would demonstrate my concept more clearly. 

If I had more time, I would change more of my lines into letters for more variety. I also had a small zig zag line that went in the middle of each big zigzag, but I took it out due to conflicts with the wavy lines. Professor Ian said at my final that he wished those lines were still there, so I would have liked to put them back in.