Apple Music Dynamic Playlists
In 2018, Apple Music decided to differentiate itself by evolving artwork for dynamic playlists. As music streaming services continue to evolve, each platform is jockeying to cozy up to artists and the realization of their creative vision with each new release. While music and its categorization become sliced into audience-specific verticals, playlists have evolved from genre-specific to conceptually curated and regularly updated by experts.
As we began our research, we audited the leading music streaming platforms to see how they positioned ever-evolving content offerings. From predictable featured stars’ headshots, to poorly selected stock imagery, or gradient swirls of shapes in colors, we identified the missing link of considered, curated creative artwork.
We embarked upon a 10-month engagement to evolve the iconic tradition of creative direction in album cover art for Apple Music across a variety of genre playlists. I helped lead both Jazz and classical playlist genres.
DESIGNED AT MANUAL (2019)
Creative challengeS
Previously, these “nine-up” playlists across numerous genres, were represented by a cropped grid of nine album artworks. In an increasingly crowded space, the way music has been followed, curated, and categorized has dramatically changed with each app evolution.
Creative challengeS
We began by evaluating the existing “nine-up”s faults.
They do not represent creative culture of each music genre. They are difficult to identify in product at-a-glance. Artwork was unable to showcase album covers. The album artwork was at times misleading to the playlist conceptually. No brand presence, hard to capitalize and market more successful playlists. They make for an extremely visually busy within the product experience. They do not scale well across various formats across the products and formats. They needed to more accurately reflect the creative culture of each musical genre to appeal to individual audiences.
Creative PARTNERS
As we surveyed our assigned genres, our goal was to curate a list of creative partners (besides ourselves) who could authentically push the aesthetic of each genre forward. We needed to respect Apple’s history as a brand and excite the passionate, niche groups in each genre. For the “Jazz Scene” series, we decided to commission leading designers from each country to interpret what modern jazz means to them.
Creative PARTNERS
As we identified artists for each genre, our focus was to challenge the visual boundaries of culture, surface new artists within constantly-evolving genres, and find economies of scale by commissioning artists capable of multiple assignments across breadth of genres. These creative freedoms allowed us to maximize our budget per commission and minimize production time. Artists, studios, and collaborators included:
Spin, Hort, Non-Format, Mario Hugo, Jules Julian, Colors and the Kids, Ana Montiel, Nicholas Alan Cope, More and More, Les Graphiquants, Sacha Lobe, Toko, Studio Garbett, Liam Stevens, Marian Bantjes, Daigo Daikoku, Alex Trouchet, Marjin Hos, Helmo, Marta Cerda, Colors and the Kids & many more.
DESIGN CREDITS
Agency: Manual
Creative Director: Tom Crabtree
Design Director: Caro Reece
Art Director: Frank Lionetti
Senior Designer: Tanner Irwin
Senior Designer: Taylor Givens
COLLABORATORS & CREDITS
Apple Music Creative Team: Alex Grossman, Davo Moretti, Krista Prestek, Candice Lawler, Juliana Diaz Delgado
PROJECT ROLE