Is good design becoming more essential or less? Let’s compare graphic design and music notation.
In the world of graphic publishing, good design is more essential than ever before. With Canva and the built-in tools on social media sites, it is no longer optional to have well-designed images to share. Where mediocre homemade design was once acceptable, it’s no longer so. When I was a kid, cheesy graphics from Print Shop or Microsoft WordArt were the norm – on dot matrix printers.
In the world of music publishing, I’d argue the opposite is true. The barriers to publishing have gotten so low, and simultaneously choirs and directors are often more willing to accept hastily generated notation with little thought given to the music “design” elements. We accept it, and we publish it. When I was a kid, a professional wouldn’t think of putting self-generated notation in front of an ensemble. My mentors all routinely hired professional copyists to put the final touches on their scores.
Now, I think these are just at different points in an inverse bell curve. As notation software comes with better and better default programming, the outputted scores will continue to improve, just as average graphic design has improved over the last decade. In other words: the quality of graphic design today can tell you a lot about what to expect from music notation in the future. Accessible, but also beautiful.
That’s something worth looking forward to!