What rocks your design world?

Music plays a very important role in my daily and professional workflow. If I really want to dive into the work I am doing at the moment or if I just want to block out everything around me I dig into the music world and land in another dimension (that reminds me of Wolmother’s Dimension – adding it to the playlist right now).

There are a couple of music styles that get my creative juices flowing, though I prefer most types of metal music. Among other styles are classical, jazz, swing and classic rock. Usually I just need a surge of energy for my body and metal does the trick. Lately it is Dragonforce and Sabaton that are on the playlists most of the time. Iron Maiden is an evergreen and so on … I will not go into details because I would like to talk about another thing connected with music.

Where do you get your music? Well I for one am a great fan of grooveshark.com, an audio streaming service. I have never actually gotten into iTunes because I originally come from the PC world and have just recently made the switch to Mac. Grooveshark is better than youtube because it lets you make playlists (OK, so does youtube, kind of), browse music by genre, artist, albums, titles and so on. And all of this is free. The only annoyance is that the free account only streams music for some time and then asks you if you are still listening. Until you confirm the pop-up window the music does not play. There is a subscription option which gets rid of that annoyance and gets you in on the many goodies like mobile apps and more. The main advantage of Grooveshark over YouTobe, however, is the quality of audio streams. There is no way you can compare those crappy audio tracks found on youtube with those on Grooveshark. Sure, you can find some great audio on YouTube as well but then again you have to download the video as well, wasting the bandwidth for nothing. Getting a bit carried away here so I will just go on with the main point – music and design.

Personally I prefer to work with music in my ears, preferably using a pair of earbuds because they are lightweight, I do not disturb other people in the room and I can rev the volume as high as I want and they cancel the ambient noise perfectly. Using a pair of Skullcandy Asym earbuds I must say that they work perfectly for me. I am no audiophile but I think they are were a good choice for the money.

But in the end the whole point of music is for it to get me in the mood, to give me the energy and to inspire me. Metal songs usually have good lyrics and the music is complex enough to stir my brain and kick it into high gear. There are times when I need to calm down and that is when classical music is the ideal choice.

I usually do not get my main inspiration from music itself. That happens when I walk around the city or go into the woods or anything. It is true that just sitting at home does nothing for me. I have to go out to get me in the mood and start getting ideas but it is the music which keeps me going. It is the music which fills me with the energy to get form start to finish with good results in the end.

Now it is your turn – what rocks your design world? Do you get your inspiration from music? Does the music make you a better designer? What part does music play in your creative processes? Let me know in the comments below.