• Why are so many musicians also designers?
• WILLPOWER: An Artist That Creates His Own Technology

§Why are so many musicians also designers?

Musicians being designers and vice versa is something I’ve noticed for as long as I can remember. I never really thought about the reasons behind it, though.

But since I was recently asked this by @dab6c...507b6 , I decided to give it some deeper thought — and, to have a second opinion, I also asked one of the coolest artists on Nostr, @caef2...b54c3 , to do this with me.

I’ll give you a little background and share my take on this topic. Then WILLPOWER will take the floor.

Let’s go.

§Background and Perspective

I got captivated by rock’n’roll at the age of 7. It was Gene Simmons’ solo album, starting with the song Radioactive. The classic KISS mania followed soon after. I knew instantly that I was going to be a musician. I started my first band at the age of 9, playing guitar, and since then I’ve constantly been in a band. When I was 15, the band I was in at the time struggled to find a drummer, so I switched to drums.

Around that time, I also started experimenting with photography. I got an older digital camera — Olympus C-740 — and with a bunch of people from school, we’d drink wine, smoke joints, and cruise the streets taking photos. Naturally, I soon came across Photoshop and started messing around with it. When the time came, I found myself a job as a graphic designer, and I’ve been making my living as a designer ever since. I’ve been freelancing for the past 5 years.

§Musicians Being Designers

I quickly noticed, when talking to other musicians, that a lot of them not only design, but actually work as designers too. (To be fair, there’s a decent number of musicians working in other creative roles — like copywriters, idea makers, etc. But design definitely stands out.)

It was so common that I never really gave it any deeper thought. It was like, “Oh, you design too? Cool… So, have you heard any good records lately?”
Like I said — it just felt like a given.

§Why Design?

§#1 - The Control.

If you’re a musician, you’re used to having control over what you produce. Your skills are what’s on the line, and many — I would even say most — musicians take their output very personally. So when it comes to album covers, visual screens for your show, promo pictures, or anything visual, you care a lot about those.

You might even care to the point that, after a few unsuccessful attempts with someone outside the band, you eventually take control yourself.

§#2 - Easy To Learn.

Mastering video or audio engineering takes a lot of time. Graphic design, on the other hand, is relatively easy to learn — you can produce your first not-terrible-looking stuff within a few hours. Of course, you’re not David Carson after a few hours, but if you’re an amateur or semi-professional musician, this isn’t an environment where truly professional graphic design is expected.

§#3 - It’s Cool and Practical.

Being a musician is cool. Being a musician and a designer is even cooler. If you master both of these areas, your chances of making a living from your precious, God-given creativity increase rapidly.

No musician sees themselves in an office. Not a single fucking one — that’s a guarantee. So learning a creative skill you can sell isn’t just cool, it’s also practical.

§#4 - It’s Art.

Musicians are artists. They have artistic souls — and most artistic souls are drawn to many different forms of art: literature, film, poetry, and visual arts as well.

§#5 - Quick Outcome

And as I said in #2, design isn’t like video production — you don’t need to lock your ass into a chair for several weeks or months. Musicians, in general, aren not that patient. The output of doing design, on the other hand, can be pretty fast — hours, maybe a few days tops.

§Wrap

Visuals have been an important part of music production since the early 1900s (check out a great article “The history of album art“ by Matt Ström-Awn ). So it’s only natural that musicians often take care of their own visual presentation — especially when working with photographers or designers who can’t quite capture their vision.

If musicians master design skills, they gain an extra layer of control over how they shape their art. And from there, it’s just a short step to doing design professionally alongside making music.

§WILLPOWER: An Artist That Creates His Own Technology

I appreciate musicians with a unique approach to their artistic presentation, so naturally, I was excited when I discovered WILLPOWER on Nostr. Not only is he a true freedom fighter and Nostrich at heart — he’s also an awesome creative in the truest sense of the word.

He pushes the boundaries of what it means to be both a musician and a visual artist. His art involves coding, building his own instruments that look like they were cut out of a sci-fi movie, or making musical instruments out of clothing (which he also designs himself).
I’m telling you, this guy is one crazy motherfucker.

Hear his words.

§Why have many musicians also become graphic designers?

W: Software made it much easier to create visuals. And now, there’s AI. Musicians without budgets can accomplish their cover art by doing it themselves. It can also easily become a passion. I think each musician has his own story behind this.

§What’s your story?


W: For me, it was falling in love with visual arts, creative coding and motion graphics. Adding another dimension to what I was already doing was exciting… Doing just music is great, but if I can do more, my world expands.

I started by spending hours at book shops absorbing amazing graphics. Then, it turned into interactive websites with audio, moving images through interactivity. Then, it turned into creative coding where sound would create graphics. Then it turned into immersive audiovisual performances where movement and sound created large projected visuals animating in real time to my body’s movements.

Now, I’m creating my own body instrument to take things to another level. It all started with Graphic Design and Typography.

Being a HipHop Artist, typography plays a big part as songs are full of lyrics and words.

Being able to do my own visuals has taken my creativity to places I would not have traveled to without.

§Do you think that music and design are both forms of communication, so that’s why those disciplines might feel kind of similar?

W: I think it depends for whom. For me, they were quite separate… Now, they work together like the ingredients of a dish. The more we exercise both muscles, the more they grow and develop. It takes effort and consistent work over many years.

§How significant is the role of an “artistic soul” that most musicians and designers share? And how exactly does it work?

W: I think the human soul is everything. If not, we loose meaning and purpose. It becomes superficial… but it takes skills, practice or an innate ability to be able to transmit this ‘soul energy’ into a creation that others can feel. Many designers do not care about the ‘soul’ and many deny that the ‘soul’ exists. Some have told me that it does not exist if it has not been proved by mainstream science.

I think it works in unexplainable ways… It is the pure creative human soul in us being expressed without barriers, in a raw, unfiltered wild way that touches us.

https://youtu.be/0RfaVsfWZL8

Find WILLPOWER:
https://willpowerstudios.com/
Follow on Nostr: @caef2...b54c3

Thanks for reading. We hope you found it enlightening and creatively inspiring. If there’s anything you’re curious about on this topic, WILLPOWER and I will gladly answer your questions in the comments.

Take care. Peace.

No Good Kid & WILLPOWER