2018

Visualizations of song texts

A visualization of 'Only You' by Steve Monite
A visualization of 'So Good at Being in Trouble' by Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Description

These cards picture visualizations of the grammar of song lyrics, drawing on repetetions and irregularity of the texts to create abstract, colorful patterns.

Inspiration

I started this project as part of a course led by Stephan Bogner. It is inspired by the works of Matthias Dörfelt, Dear Data by Stefanie Posavec and Giorgia Lupi and Bárbara Rebolledo’s SongPost.

Process

This project was the outcome of a week long university course on the topic of data visualization, that later turned into a side project for some refinements and further explorations around color and layout.

The basis is a script that breaks down each song text word-by-word adding its function and emotional connotation*. In a second step the metadata is used to generate abstract and colorful patterns. I manually exported those patterns as SVG files to play around with the format and text for printing and create the dark variation.

A visualization of 'Fine lines' by Jorija Smith
A visualization of 'Car Park' by Fenne Lily
A set of visualizations of multiple songs: 'Say, Can You Hear' by Men I Trust, 'No Ordinary Love' by Sade, 'We Choose' by Her, 'Doubt' by Charlotte Day Wilson, 'Please, Please, Please, Let Me get What I Want' by The Smiths, 'Waste by Rhye, 'Not Made For Love' by Metronomy and 'Money' by Leisure
A visualization of 'Run Away' by Moonchild
A visualization of 'Funeral' by Charlotte Day Wilson
A set of visualizations of three songs: 'Slowly' by Son Lux, 'A Little While' by Yellow Days and 'Garden Song' by Phoebe Bridgers