Drawar

Radiohead, turin breaks and elbow at the moment, elbow have a new album out whoooooooaaaa!

When I am writing, I cannot listen to any music as it can affect my creativity in ways that are inappropriate to the subject or theme. When I listen to music I do just that and give it my full attention. Classics are my favourite.

@Right On: Lighting is a major factor in my design too. Mainly, I set up my environment to corespond to my work, i.e. when I worked on this poject I listened to pop/rock music like the Plain White Tees in a well-lit room with white walls; but when I designed the set for a small Circus production I listened to... well, this. When I'm writing an essay, it's all about the dim lighting and a song with a beat that's easy to feel, like Don't Stop the Music, by Rihanna.

It's weird because my favorite music is folk/country/rock stuff (country i.e. Lucero, Ryan Adams, etc) but for some reason pop-electronic, hip-hop works best for me to work to.

Ambient, instrumental like Sigur Ros, Rachel's, etc is good too...

Speed metal, classical, ambient, whatever. :)

Ok this is lame but I copied my Facebook "favorite music" and pasted it below, but these are some of the people I play randomly while designing and coding.

Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, SRV, A Perfect Circle, Tool, Bob Marley, Eric Clapton, Frank Zappa, John Mayer, Jack Johnson, Audioslave, Soundgarden, Dave Matthews Band, Gorillaz, Nine Inch Nails, Foo Fighters, The Rolling Stones, U2, Pearl Jam, Norah Jones, Harry Connick Jr., Fiona Apple, James Taylor, Allman Brothers, and sooo Much more!

ambient, low-key - somafm is a great site to have something playing off of, or I'll pop in some Dead Can Dance or Cocteau Twins...

Something i've listened to death already, so i know all the lyrics and i don't find myself just sitting there concentrating on that instead of the open photoshop/illustrator/in-design document in front of me.

Bands like Metromony, Death Cab For Cutie, Joy Division etc.

Most of the time I work in a pretty silent environment by myself..but for some reason, today, I have a Widespread Panic show from '98 blaring in the background while I work on some customer documentation...it's on the house stereo too, because my computer speakers aren't that great...and no-where near as loud...

usually starts with something like radiohead to get my initial focus, then ramps up to mf doom and ghostface killah, into daedelus and perfuse 73 and ends with random thrash metal and aphex twin.