Suite Beats: Ten Albums That Supercharge Our Designers’ Productivity
A Tectonic playlist of instrumental and ambient albums to get your creative juices flowing.
On any given day at Tectonic HQ in Seattle, you’ll hear a variety of excellent tunes pumping through the studio sound system. Today Frank Ocean is on repeat. But upon closer look inside suite 200, you’ll undoubtedly find a pair of heavy-duty, over-the-ear headphones cocooning a focused designer, hard at work. Whether it’s pen and paper sketching, wireframing ideation, or pushing pixels to perfection, designers often get their most effective work done in solitary swaths of focused design time, free from the audible distractions of an office.
The specific tunes soundtracking those solitary swaths vary from designer to designer. Oftentimes lyric-driven music can pique too much of the mind’s interest while calming white noise just doesn’t provide that je ne sais quoi needed to keep the creative juices flowing. To showcase the concept of design music centering on the instrumental and ambient, we asked two of our designers, Evan Scott and Gretchen Nash, to share their go-to albums for crushing it at work.
Listen to all 10 albums on our Spotify playlist, Suite Beats vol. 1, or listen to our 10 favorite tracks playlist, Suite Beats vol. 1 Favorite Tracks.
Evan’s Picks
Music Taste: scanning my last few playlists you’ll find modern German house, 90s’ R&B, and classic American rock, which is a bit of an eclectic mix for sure. When I’m working though, I primarily listen to something electronic that straddles the line between dance and ambient. As an interaction designer my job involves writing copy and creating content as often as crafting design assets, so listening to lyrics make it particularly hard to work with words. That said, you’ll certainly find some vocal samples in my picks, just nothing Adele would be proud of.
1. Kiasmos — Self-Titled (2014)
For the last year or so this has been my go-to album for when I need to dig in and get focused work done (a friend accurately described it as “audio Adderall”). Not aggressive but still full of energy, the entire album feels like dance music played with classical instruments in a glacial ice cave. Kiasmos is from Iceland and it shows.
Favorite Track: Swayed
2. Flamingosis — Bright Moments (2016)
The newest album of my picks, this one has a few songs that sample someone speaking, notably Kanye West. These vocals almost knocked Bright Moments out of contention as design music for this list, BUT the album is so refreshing and funky that I fought to keep it in. Built primarily out of samples of soul, funk, disco, even bossa nova, the final product falls somewhere between tropical hotel lobby music and big room hip-hop. A great Friday morning album.
Favorite Track: Sunset Park
3. Todd Terje — It’s Album Time (2014)
Let me preface this by saying the last song on this album, Inspector Norse, is my favorite song to come out in the last half decade or so. Besides designing to, this 7-minute odyssey works equally well for bedroom dancing, birthday parties, and open highway cruising. The preceding 11 tracks on the album are also stellar. Terje is a synth master but still has a sense of humor resulting in a very upbeat hour of design time.
Favorite Track: Inspector Norse
4. CFCF — Continent (2009)
I first came across CFCF back in the late aughts as a design student at Stanford. Their 2009 release, Continent, has been in heavy rotation ever since. That means A) I’ve worked to this album throughout undergrad, grad school, and three jobs, and B) this album has staying power. Putting out an even-tempered, low-key balearic vibe, Continent doesn’t have any standout heaters, and that’s a good thing. I find that these tracks work best on rainy days and late nights.
Favorite Track: Invitation to Love
5. Madlib — Shades of Blue (2003)
I hadn’t listened to this album in years until I was reminded of it by fellow Tectonic designer, Nate Landes, while discussing compiling this list. Since then it’s been in heavy rotation. The premise of Shades of Blue was to arm one of the greatest hip-hop producers (Otis Jackson, Jr. aka Madlib) with the back catalog of one of the greatest jazz labels (Blue Note Records) and see what happens. The result is an hour of beats so good you never miss the rapper. It makes for perfect listening to get you over an afternoon hump.
Favorite Track: Stepping into Tomorrow
Gretchen’s Picks
Music Taste: I literally cannot design anything without music playing in my headphones. I am endlessly on the hunt for new artists and fresh jams, but my foundational penchant for design music is rooted in synth pop. I like to refer to it in my non-technical music vocabulary as “bleeps and bloops” music. When I’m not designing, I generally listen to lyric-rich tunes that include genres of classic rock (lots of Hendrix on rotation lately), heavy metal, pop punk, and some strong female hip-hop like Lizzo or Dessa. My tastes can be all over the place, but it’s clear that music keeps me inspired and is at the core of my creativity.
6. Tycho — Dive (2011)
This is my go-to album for background music while doing early design explorations. At this point in my life, I have listened to Dive so many times that it’s become a comforting white noise of sorts. It can truly fade into the background as a supportive role in my design process. When I need a break from zoning in on pixels and just listen to the music, I am still taken aback by how beautifully light and intricate the tracks are. As a bonus, I have a design crush on the Tycho mastermind, Scott Hansen, who is the graphic designer for all the superb Tycho album art. His eye for color palettes and simple, Swiss-inspired designs are on point.
Favorite Track: A Walk
7. Moderat — Self-Titled (2009)
This album is filled with deep bass and spooky rhythmic beats. It will make you feel like you are an evil wizard when you listen to it! The songs start out with subtle synth noises that gradually build on each other, every track having their own personality. I like to listen to Moderat when I am finessing the final details of a design or perusing the web for fresh design inspiration.
Favorite Track: A New Error
8. TOKiMONSTA — Half Shadows (2013)
This is an upbeat album lush with glitch-hop sounds and plenty of bass. A few of the songs on Half Shadows have guest vocals, but they are easy to tune out and actually effectively supplement TOKiMONSTA’s master beats. From concept sketching to finishing redlines, Half Shadows is a universally solid album to design to. I will also listen to it on my morning walk to work, pretending it’s a movie soundtrack to an otherwise lackluster commute in the doldrums of rainy Seattle. It gets me hype for the workday!
Favorite Track: 808
9. Flying Lotus — Cosmogramma (2010)
This is definitely an album I listen to when I need a break from staring at the computer screen. Cosmogramma is a perfect fit for when I need to zone out and complete tasks like cutting out moodboard images, organizing my desk, and prepping client meeting materials. The sound of Flying Lotus is an intricate blend of video game samples, hip-hop, jazz, and electronic dance music. It will surely keep you on your toes and take you somewhere you’ve never been. The tracks on Cosmogramma are between one and four minutes. Just when you think you’ve got a track figured out, Flying Lotus swiftly takes you on another wild adventure.
Favorite Track: Zodiac Shit
10. Miami Nights 1984 — Turbulence (2012)
I discovered this album right around the time I finished watching season one of Netflix’s Stranger Things. It perfectly fills the hole in my heart for 80s’ nostalgia! Each song is appropriately named to describe an evocative retro scene such as Ocean Drive and Streets on Fire. The album art is unapologetic in its tribute to throwback ‘80s lettering, Lisa Frank, and the airbrush effect. I queue up the upbeat tracks of Turbulence when I want to feel like a superhero trapped in an NES console, which is all the time.
Favorite Track: Streets on Fire
Tectonic is an experience design studio in Seattle and Boston. We collaborate with the world’s greatest companies to reimagine how people interact with content and technology. As this article details, we love listening to music while designing. Find out more about us at gotectonic.com, and sign up for our Friday Links newsletter here.
