More than 30 professionals gathered at XPLANE’s Portland office to participate in April’s Visual Thinking School (VTS): Music, Ethnography & Design. The April session was designed and run by Dave King, vice president of client services, and Roel Uleners, senior consultant, and required participants to create a poster visualizing a product or service idea for a distinct American subculture.
To create their posters, teams were given the lyrics to five popular songs representative of a particular subculture. Musical genres explored were country, rap, R&B/hip hop and heavy metal. Teams examined, deconstructed and synthesized the song lyrics to reveal the assumable values, themes and imagery of that subculture. The end result varied from apps to websites, and consultative services to physical products.
VTS is held the first Thursday of every month in our Portland office, and is open to the public. If you are interested in more information, please contact Dave King.