How I Turned Music Lyrics/Quotes into Visual Art: My Process and the History Explained
The History
Growing up music was always a huge inspiration in general to me. A lot of people grow up with one or two parents, but I was lucky enough to have three that were a part of my life in different ways. My brother’s dad (who always treated me like his own as well) got me into the same music he liked since I was at least two years old. Some of my favorite memories were us jamming out in the car to different rock/metal songs which became my favorite genre ever since. He introduced me to my favorite band that never changed for me: Nickelback. I know, they get a lot of hate, but I’ve always loved them. Music was what we talked about and always had a strong bond over the most growing up all the way through college graduation. Always talking about music and he would buy the albums as they came out.
After his unexpected passing, this changed my life forever. I no longer had the person with that particular strong bond in my life. This is the moment where it changed my life. I eventually came up with Taste These Lyrics where I took song lyrics from artists/bands that inspired me in some way to keep creating through the loss. It made me feel more connected, like I can still find a way to keep connecting through music and keep the memories alive. The name was originally born from the question, “If a song had its own packaging for that particular song, what would it look like?” Taste = food packaging. Packaging was an area I excelled at as some of the best work I ever created wining the 2018 Indigo award for original packaging as well. The idea was eventually changed to focus on music lyrics and how to communicate that particular lyric into the right mood through illustration or expressive typography. Eventually, I decided to separate lyrics with quotes and created another account called Taste These Quotes to focus on quotes about various topics and trying to capture the quote through illustration and typography.
Creating from Digital to Foil
Throughout the years since his passing, I created music lyric art as digital illustrations I posted to social media only. It became a way to help cope while trying to navigate getting my first graphic design job out of college and dealing with the loss of the closest person in my life in a time that should of been celebratory. It became an area of design I was interested in — music that connects emotion and design. I created sporadically through the years until 2023 where I decided on learning a new medium — reactive foil art. I watched carefully how others crafted. Cooper Calligraphy was a huge inspiration to me. I loved her artwork! I turned my passion for type, music, and art together to create physically produced music lyric foil artwork on cardstock paper. My past experience managing a print shop at sea gave me print production experience on top of graphic design knowledge. I dedicated a year of sketching ideas every single week to digitally creating on the computer, to the printed, foiled handmade piece. It was a lot of work at first, figuring out mistakes and how to fix them. Some days I struggled coming up with good ideas, but did not stop creating.
The Craft
I start by sketching a lot of ideas out really quickly. I create a mood board filled with images, pins, type, and the overall feel I believe the lyric or quote feels like it should have. Many times I also listen to the song over and over again while working and rereading lyrics and paying close attention to how the song sounds. Music expresses so many emotions just by its sound alone. Lyrics and having an understanding of the emotion, meaning, and interpreting it through design, through the visual arts is crucial. After sketches, mood boards, and jamming out to music, I create slower but tidier sketches with the best ideas next. I try connecting the music, lyrics, typography, illustration, and tone together while keeping the question, “Do these illustrations or type fit together with the song’s/quote’s message"?” in mind. After the sketching phase, I go to digital and design using the Adobe programs or Affinity Suite. Just my preference as the best options. Then, once I design the full color version, I create another version in black and white using only 100 K in the color field. You can’t use an inkjet, only a monochrome toner printer for reactive foil. This helps toner stick to the reactive foil paper when printing.
After digital work, I print on thick 80 lb or 60 lb cardstock. The weight depends on how much cardstock weight your printer can handle. Printer specs are useful in finding this info out. I then print my design and place foil over top a foil sheet pouch. Make sure to add a piece of printer paper top top of the foil, but inside the pouch so the foil does not stick to the laminate pouch. I use the highest heat setting on a Minc Machine but you can also use a laminator machine. The highest setting works so you don’t get as many little specs of foil missing. It needs to be hot enough to produce the best outcome. The foil has to be reactive foil to work properly. If you would like to learn how to do foil art, I offer services for $75 an hour over zoom.
Check out my “Graphic Design 1 on 1 Remote Tutoring” zoom services at the bottom of the page here.