YOUNIVERSE
#UX/UI #WEB DESIGN #CONCEPT DESIGN #CREATIVE DIRECTION #MULTIMEDIA
The world of a Sirian
"Youniverse" is an award - winning multi - dimensional full-length concept album by Possimiste that takes a listener on a journey into each song through music and visuals.
For me, Youniverse is undoubtedly the dearest project for me of all, a years-long journey who has made a huge role in me becoming who I am today - and will hopefully inspire everyone to dream and work hard for their dreams.
Read an interview here
The Role
Youniverse, that as a concept and musical work was in works for more than 7 years, has been mostly thousands of hours working by myself, and searching within - which I love, from writing to recording, producing, engineering, and designing the concept for the web and physical edition, editing videos and developing the website.
Yet, at the second stage it was a great pleasure to creatively direct and orchestrate the process between mixing and mastering engineers, instrumentalists, illustrators, printing agencies and publishers who formed a big remote team who are all joined in this project that keeps finding new auciences.
The Challenges
Two-level design thinking
As the local developers expect the Envision Campus bring a lot of international attention to the area and significant increase in tourism, the Headquarters buildings needed to be easily adaptable for a change to become luxurious hotels.
For that, every design decision needed to be carefully thought, considering both future uses and required a research in hospitality planning, beyond architecture. As hospitality is equally defined by service, cultivating a high quality service culture at the area through the Envision Campus culture, became one of our main points of focus and influenced a lot the planning of the development.
Finding back the "right" concept
When I was 18 I had a vision of a space-inspired concept album that clearly appeared in front of my eyes and within my ears.
Yet, for some reason I put it aside.
I planned Possimiste's debut album from the beginning until the end of my 20s. In the beginning of my twenties I was a joyful hippie-spirited girl who was in love with magic and the forest. I explored the topics of love for the first time and wrote a bunch of dramatic love songs while the sound and aesthetics was all organic.
When my album was almost ready, a big change in my life happened, and I found myself having a studio in an old industrial building that little by little became my home. I came there early in the morning and left late at night. It often happened that on my way home I sat by the river and looked at the starry sky and dreamed away. I felt how the glimmering pieces in the dark sky seemed like symbols of my whole existence - the stars ended up giving inspiration for so many new songs that they replaced the old ones and the forest hippie had become a girl from Sirius that she always new she was. Nothing had ever felt that right before, and when the name "Youniverse" came to me - I never doubted in it even once, and knew exactly in my head how the album was going to look and feel like.
How to find simple ways to convey complex ideas?
As Youniverse is a full philosophical concept that explores the essence of music and humans in general while belonging to pop culture, it poses a number of challenges in design as well as storytelling.
There was clearly going to be a choice to be made - to prioritize mystery or the size of potential immediate audience. I chose to prioritize the original concept and mystery that tcharacterises the world of Possimiste and put the focus more on the creative and artistic audiences with shared values.
Notable solutions
A dream journey
As each song of the album originates from a dream, I wished to create an experience that in retrospect would feel like a dream.
Just as in real life, we dream many dreams each night, and remember only fragments of each one (if we are lucky), the online experience involves a 10-15 - second visual fragment for each song, and gives the dreamer freedom to create their own story around that dream. This way the immersive experience will have a different meaning for each participant.
Multiple platforms
Nowadays, we have so mny ways for experiencing music and we all can choose our favorite. My wish was to make Youniverse accessible for both, the general audience, and for the more committed audience who enjoys taking time for conscious experiencing, decoding the songs, and diving into the world. That's the reason for creating special versions and storytelling methods for multiple platforms: web, physical release, Spotify, and Instagram.
While the online version involves a strong 1-hour experience, including dream symbols, song lyrics, diary and much more, the visuals for Spotify serve a more illustrative purpose and are to make people want to explore more. The Instagram expeirence opens itself throughout a year, opening up the stories behind each song one by one with additional features, and starts a discussion on mysterious matters.
Stellar design
The design of both, the website and the physical edition is inspired by the night sky and the polar nature of life, and plays mainly with two colors, black and white/silver. The fonts and drawings are following the dreamy and fairytale-esque songs, blending together occult, futurism, and fairy-tale aesthetics.
Inspiring self-reflection through visuals
Youniverse is all about inspiring people to look deeper into themselves and does so by letting the visitor enter the world of the author without conditions. In the end we, people, share many foundations and can learn a lot through empathy. The cover of the special edition features a mirror that makes the listener's face appear within the album, letting them become part of it even visually.
Lessons to take
The essence of inspiration
True inspiration drives the artist. It is as if you had given a seed of a magic plant that the world (or someone in the world) needs, and you are the only one who has the task to make it bloom, and spread its seeds. And even though nobody tells you how exactly you are supposed to take care of this plant, or even how it exactly will look like, you will do anything it takes, because deep inside you know you have the ability to reach all the knowledge it takes.
...and once it blooms, you never doubt true inspiration again as it is such a special kind of feeling.
Becoming aware of my abilities
In the design community, a T-shape personality has been often discussed lately. " Youniverse" definitely made me realize I was one.
I consider myself undoubtedly as a musician, but as well, a world-builder. Creating a universe around your main passion requires multidisciplinary expression and skills, such as concept design, graphic design, writing, team management - that all creates a full experience, which makes me feel my visions are "complete".
Learning to put the puzzle together
In the creation of Youniverse I collaborated with artists from all around the world.
While collaboration itself is a craft on its own, collaborating with artists takes it to another level.
I had a very clear vision regarding how something should sound like, I also knew that my skills in some fields do not bring out the full potential in the songs. Thus, I looked into myself taking into account my decades - long exprience as a vocalist, asking: As a session vocalist, what would my ideal working process be?
I realized that for skill-based projects that do not require me to be creative, the more sensitive I can be, the better the interpretation will be. The process had to be smooth, and not too long.I realized that communication was going to be the key, and sound is a very good tool for communicating with musicians. I provided each musician with my recording of the instrument, alongside the visuals and comments, to save their time wondering: " How would she like to have it sound like?"
The importance of a physical creation space
Every project, may it be big or small, requires focus to be successfully completed. As during the whole process I tried out at least 4 different working conditions I learned much about spaces and how they influence the creative process for me and my - type-of people.
A great condition for creativity is a private creative studio within a community - Having ideas is great but sharing your excitement about your new findings is even better....and being inspired by the ideas of others
Plants - In a space with a lot of electronic devices it is important to keep the air pure, and have living things that grow with you.
Darker colors - As I had a chance to operate within two different studios within the same building, I could not help not noticing how my concentration was remarkably better in the darker studio.
A place to get active - Going out to take a walk in the surrounding forest was great for gaining new energy. Also, I had a big space outside my studio, which I finally started using for rope-jumping that, again, kept my body happy.