Music to Move You
Design lead at Apple, 2016
That feeling when you're halfway through a long set from your favorite band and it smells like fog machine.
Strategy:
Before Apple Music shipped, nobody could react to it. So the art direction went onto a real phone in a hand, and genre photography got argued in the room rather than on a board.
Design:
A working prototype of the app for in-situ reviews, the motion studies for how it looks moving, the in-store experiences, and Artist Connect, which tints the interface to each album's palette against 50,000 covers.
Leadership:
I was on staff, reporting to the ECD of the iTunes division: a skunkworks designer on the prototyping projects, and the iTunes brand design partner on the website. Conceptual thinking balanced against production.
Product in Hand
The room, on a phone.
Genre photography on a real screen. The jazz page looks like the room it was recorded in, moody and underlit. Play a record and Artist Connect reads the sleeve and tints the whole interface to match.
Product in Life
Argued on a real phone.
Nothing had shipped, so nobody could react to it. The prototype ran on a real phone in a real hand, and the genre photography got argued in the room rather than on a board.
Frames
Product in Culture
The sleeve is a thumbnail.
Album art was the size of the record. On a phone it is a thumbnail, so the interface carries the mood. Streaming put every record in reach, and the more there is, the more the picture has to do.
Position:
Design lead at Apple
Services:
Strategy, Design
Partner:
Apple
Status:
Launched, 2016