Find the Three Words Behind Your Sound

Every visual choice from here on needs a test: does this fit the project or not? Three well-chosen words give you that test.

Photo: “Free vinyl record turntable image” by rawpixel, CC0.

Why words come before colors

If you choose colors by taste alone, you will choose differently every month. Words hold still. They let you, a photographer and a designer make the same decision without a meeting.

How to find them

Start from the sound, since that is the thing that already exists.

1. Play three of your tracks and write every adjective that comes up. Twenty or more, without judging.
2. Cross out anything that describes most music: authentic, unique, emotional, powerful. True of everyone, useful to no one.
3. Cross out genre names. “Indie” is a shelf in a shop. It says nothing about how the work feels.
4. Group what is left and pick one word from each of three groups.

Good words are specific and a little physical: nocturnal, dry, sunburnt, ceremonial, restless, velvet, concrete. You can almost see them already, which is exactly why they work.

Test the three

Put the three words next to your page from step 3 and ask two questions.

Could these same words describe an artist who sounds nothing like you? If yes, they are too general. Sharpen them.

Do the three pull in slightly different directions? They should. “Dark, moody, gloomy” is one word said three times. “Dark, warm, unhurried” describes something you can picture.

If your three words fit any artist, they will not help you choose anything.

What the words do later

They choose for you. Warm rules out an icy blue palette. Unhurried rules out a jittery cut in a video. Dry rules out a glossy, retouched photo.

If the words feel foreign, the identity will too. They should describe what is already in the music, said clearly. We wrote more about that idea in You Don’t Need a New Identity.

Do this now

Do the four steps above and write your three words at the top of your notes. Send them to one person who knows your music and ask a single question: “Which of these is wrong?”

Finding these words together with the artist is the first thing we do in an identity project. See how that works.