If anyone knows me, they know I love music almost as much as I love design. Nearly everyone gets inspired and pumped up by music. Music is one of the few things that connect all of us. Here is a list of a few of my Twitter/Designer friends and the music that inspires them to create.
Mayhem Studios
Bio: Mayhem Studios is a small, award-winning design firm located in Los Angeles. Develops identity and brand recognition for small & large businesses across the nation. The Studio uses strategic and creative design with effective messages targeted to the client’s specific audiences.
Website: http://www.mayhemstudios.com
Twitter:mayhemstudios
Design Music: Anything 80s – Men Without Hats (Safety Dance), Thomas Dolby (she Blinded Me With Science), Depeche Mode (Master & Servant)
Casey Hald
Website: http://www.sunfalldesigns.com
Twitter: CaseyHald
Design Music: When I’m designing digital art, I typically listen to power metal, Finland metal, and movie soundtracks such as LOTR soundtrack, Enya, and other epic motion pictures. My favorite bands to listen to are Amon Amarth, Children of Bodom, Iron Maiden, Nightwish, & Bad Religion.
Kostandinos
Bio: Kostandinos is a graphic/web designer and abstract painter living in metro Detroit.
Website: http://www.kostandinos.com
Twitter: suedecrush
Design Music: Dreamend, Mono, Explosions in the Sky, The Octopus Project, Powderfinger, Catherine Wheel, Paik, Jacob, Daturah, and Toman. Big fan of “post-rock” instrumental bands.
Aaron Irizarry
Bio: My name is Aaron Michael Irizarry (aaron i for short), I survive mostly on Asian food & coffee, I am a designer, artist, God follower, father, husband, dodger fan, star wars geek, retired musician, canvas… I am passionate about web design/development, and I love pretty much anything creative. I drink coffee, work, and rant at eLocal Listing, I live in beautiful Murrieta, CA with my amazing wife Amanda, and two girls Ashlyn, and Audrey.
Website: http://www.thisisaaronslife.com
Twitter: aaroni268
Design Music: It depends on what I am doing but more times than not two bands in particular inspire me creatively. Unwed Sailor, Explosions In The Sky, This Will Destroy You. Alot of times when I am tired then I crank up the brutality, and listen to
The Red Chord, War of Ages, Ringworm, Sleeping Giant, Most Precious Blood, and of course Iron Maiden (sorry i will always be a metal head at heart) and the rest of the time i just basically put my iPod on shuffle songs and go with the flow.
Selene M. Bowlby
Bio: Selene M. Bowlby is a web designer and front-end web developer with over 10 years of professional experience in the design industry. After taking the “freelance plunge” in 2008, she runs her company, iDesign Studios full time, where she specializes in creating custom web sites for other small businesses.
Website: http://www.idesignstudios.com/blog
Twitter: idesignstudios
Design Music: I love any and everything by Maynard James Keenan – specifically Tool, but also A Perfect Circle and Puscifer. I also like listening to Nine Inch Nails. Got to rock out to get all the creative juices flowing!
Angie Bowen
Bio: I’m a 31 year old artist, designer & web developer living in the mountains of Colorado. I began my design career years ago learning to build and devise websites. Now that I have a firm handle on both xhtml and css, I plan to move on to explore PHP and Ruby on Rails and see what they have got to offer.
Website: http://arbent.net/
Twitter: Arbenting
Design Music: Placebo is my favorite to listen to when I’m working. Though lately I’ve been listening to the Repo! The Genetic Opera soundtrack.
Kyle Steed
Bio: I currently work as the lead web developer/designer for a WaveTwo (http://www.wavetwo.com) in Dallas, Texas. I have a wonderful wife Amanda of almost three years that supports me. I enjoy playing with our two labradors, Samson and Benjamin. I am learning to make the best of every situation. OH, and I just helped design a new taste over at Nectar (http://tastynectar.com)
Website: http://www.kylesteed.com
Twitter: kylesteed
Design Music: Well first off, here’s a recent post I did for some music I like in the winter: http://www.kylesteed.com/the-onset-of-winter-playlist/
But on any given day I can found listening to the great sounds of M83 (Saturdays = Youth),
Snow Patrol (A Hundred Million Suns), Mute Math (Reset EP) and
Ray LaMontagne (Gossip In The Grain)
Amanda Wyler
Bio: Artistic Amanda Designs is run by a one-woman show: Amanda Wyler. Twenty-eight and living in the heart of Music City, Amanda is the rare person who can move between business and creative endeavors with ease — wearing the hats of visual artist, graphic designer, musician and entrepreneur simultaneously. Passionate about beautiful images in all forms, Amanda focuses on simplicity, style and timelessness.
Website: http://www.artisticamanda.com (currently undergoing a huge renovation – don’t judge me!) 
Twitter: artistic_amanda
Design Music: (I opened iTunes and shuffled… these were the first 7 songs that played)
- Rats – Pearl Jam (Vs.)
- 15 Steps – Radiohead (In Rainbows)
- Backdrifts – Radiohead (Hail to the Thief)
- The Ballad of Johnny Butt – Sublime (Sublime)
- Megalomaniac – Incubus (A Crow Left of the Murder)
- Misery Business – Paramore (Riot!)
- Portions of Foxes – Rilo Kiley (More Adventurous)
Bob Pease
Bio: Web/UI designer (among other things) for http://www.techrigy.com
Website: http://www.bpeasedesign.com – portfolio site
Twitter: bobbo0521
Design Music: Jackson Waters
Arron Lock
Bio: I have been an independant graphic designer for nearly 6 years and though I do have web knowledge I prefer the world of print design. I run arronlock.com (the site you are on now) to share my knowledge of starting out as a fledgling designer and what to expect from the business world.
Website: http://www.arronlock.com (you’re already here)
Twitter: arronlock
Design Music: It depends on the day and how how I am feeling but generally some good heavy music jump starts me. Anything from Slipknot, Mudvayne or Avenged Sevenfold all the way to Billy Joel, Elton John and The Beatles get me through the day… and everyone loves Code Monkey
Great list, Arron! I think I’m about to discover some new music here. Thanks for including me!
I just wrote a post on Fuel Your Creativity along these same lines! It’s really cool to see everyone’s tastes
I’d invite everyone to post their musical tastes on the FYC post as well.
Link to FYC article “Music To Feed Your Soul During Crucial Design Moments” – http://www.fuelyourcreativity.com/8-songs-music-to-feed-your-soul-during-crucial-design-moments/
I officially believe that the blogosphere has some sort of psychokinetic connection. I swear I was going to post about this in a few days. FYC did a post on it too.
Good post, however. I love music as well, especially during design.
The Frames
Deas Vail
Copeland
Colour Revolt
Edison Glass
All the Day Holiday
Coldplay
Classical music: Debussy, Impressionism and the Romantic era in general
Many Many Many More.
I would really recommend three of my all time favorites: Self, the eels, and Sufjan Stevens. I can literally listen to any of them for hours.
Hey great list! Cool to see some friends on here as well as people i have yet to have the chance to meet.
I don’t know what I would do without music while I am designing. Great to see the different musical tastes, I will be definitely be checking out some of the music listed.
Thanks for the post Arron, and thanks for the include on the list!
Thanks everyone for participating! It was lots of fun hearing about different musical tastes between designers. I’m gonna check out some of the stuff I hadn’t heard of.
Ah, I love my music – but I tend to only listen to punk. Comes with being the editor of a digital punk magazine, ha ha. (distortedmagazine.com for those who are interested)
Everything from Rancid through to the noisecore of Converge is in my playlist. If you visit my site, you’ll see my latest selections as they’re streamed through last.fm
A life without music would be pure madness!
Its cool to hear about everyone’s different musical inspirations. I’d like to see more blogs like this in the future
I like to listen to Sigur Ros when designing
Good post!
Nice post, depending what im doing i need music if im coding i dont care for it that much but if im designing then i could do with the encouragement,
Mainly Rock,indie,punk,acoustic.. Alkaline trio to name one
Thanks for opportunity to participate. Great sounds from everyone.
Im a 100% Music Lover;)I have a band.I use to play the drums=)
It’s a lot of fun to read through this list. Seeing what some people listen to gives you an impression of what sort of creations they like. I like getting an idea based on the music and matching it up to some of the work.