Designers and musicians have always had a special bond, and ability to influence culture.

This event will explore and ask us to look at the role that design and music play in our relationship to the human experience today.

Earlier this year, with Lawrence Azerrad’s help, AIGA the professional organization of design launched the Design Plus program, spotlighting how the design community can make an impact for good across business and services around the world.

With 20 years of designing album artwork for artists such as Sting, Wilco, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Miles Davis, and Esperanza Spaulding, Herbie Hancock, The Pretenders, The Beach Boys, The Silversun Pickups, and Red Bull Sound Select’s 30 days music festival (Sampha, Joey Bada$$, TV on The Radio), Lawrence looks at the process of defining music through design, and asks how we can deepen our cultural connection to music and the power and meaning behind this through compelling creative in design.

Music has long been a critical pillar to defining the human experience, a vessel for transmitting our cultural histories, uplifting and inspiring the individual daily human experience, framing songs of protest, inspiration, religion, love, loss, and vision. How has our connection to this changed in a world of digital streaming?

Lawrence will take us on a journey of the design music connection, sharing work and stories from the field, and will lead us through some of the findings of the Design+Music program, examining how we discover music, our connection to music today and why the visual context matters.

About Lawrence Azerrad:

Lawrence Azerrad is a Los Angeles based Graphic Designer and Creative Director. Azerrad founded LADdesign, a graphic design studio dedicated to elevating our cultural experience through design excellence. Since 2001 LADdesign has created graphic design and comprehensive visual identity systems for clients such as Sting, The Silversun Pickups, Esperanza Spalding, The Beach Boys, UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, Red Bull Sound Select, and over a Eighteen-year client relationship, spanning seven album packages for award-winning American alternative rock band, Wilco.

Prior to opening LADdesign, Lawrence was an art director at Warner Bros Records, creating packaging and artwork for artists such as Miles Davis, and The Red Hot Chili Peppers. He has taught Graphic Design at Art Center College of Design, He currently serves as an Advisory Board Member for the Los Angeles chapter of the AIGA.

Tickets are $15 / $10 for MODA members / $8 for students