Apple

Apple Music, on a real phone

Design lead, through PortalApple Music · 2015–2016

Launched, 2015

The working prototype on the phone: Radio, the genre tiles, Beats 1, the player.

Before Apple Music shipped, nobody could react to it. So the art direction went onto a working prototype, and the genre photography was reviewed on the device rather than on a board.

Role: Design lead, through Portal
Scope: Apple Music launch art direction
Method: A marketing-led product prototype on a working phone
Result: Faster decisions, fewer review rounds

The prototype in hand: the player on the device the decisions were made on.

The launch website, scrolled: All the ways you love music, Beats 1, membership.

The work included a functioning app prototype for in-situ reviews, motion studies, in-store experiences, and Artist Connect. Artist Connect tints the interface to each album’s palette, drawing on 50,000 covers.

Through Portal in 2015, I reported to the ECD of the iTunes division. I worked as a skunkworks designer on prototyping projects and as the iTunes brand design partner on the website.

Retail headphone wall with artist stations. Concept visualization.

Out-of-home design prototype. Ours; it did not launch.

In hand

The genre photography was designed to work at phone size. 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 interface to match.

Photography and art-direction board behind the out-of-home prototype.