The Sound Of The UK: IDM

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This project is a fictional deluxe box set designed at Sint Lucas, Ghent for the assignment of promoting a music genre during the 2nd year graphic design studio.

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IDM

Nobody ever wanted to call it IDM. Braindance, electronica, bleep techno – anything was better than the US-centric (and still awkwardly disparaging) ‘intelligent dance music'.

The genre started in the 90s as a reaction to Europe’s goggle-eyed rave culture, IDM was ultimately driven by the development and proliferation of cheap (often free) music production softwares.

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Sound

The music has a very electronic, inorganic sound, regularly combined with very irregular, sometimes frantic, rhythmic elements. A lot of the music was composed using synthesizers, and probably even more was done using laptops.

Popular tools for this were the various modular software synthesizers and applications such as Ableton Live, what requires the use of layers and a very scientific approach.

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Concept - Exploration Of The 90s

Because of this scientific and experimental approach, I interpreted the music as
a space exploration and designed everything in the box around space research.

I've worked with layers, transparancy, gradients and mostly circular and other geometric forms to create a modern sci-fi style.

For the fonts Eurostile Bold Extended and Letter Gothic were chosen.

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Vinyls

For the 5 vinyls, I selected 5 labels from the 90s UK, which were leading in producing IDM tracks.

Warp, Skam, Planet Mu, Rephlex and The Black Dog Productions.

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Theory

The theoretical part contains a lexicon (IDM: A User's Manual) for the musical geeks who want to get a deep knowledge of their beloved genre.

The DVD documentary (IDM: A Journey Through Sound) gives a detailed look of the history of IDM in the 90s and pleases with exclusive unseen footage and interviews with the artists such as Aphex Twin, The Boards Of Canada or Autechre.

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Merchandising

As the clothing item, a personalized patch has been designed and a silk screened totebag, which serves as an advertising for the campaign, but on the other side, it teases the viewer with the names of the contributing labels.

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Web

The one-page site has an opening page with a starmap, for the overview of the items in the box. The background is always changing as we scroll down, just as the different spheres of the atmosphere.