Digital Visual Identifiers for Sound from Palestine: Exploring Less-Charted Areas in Design Discourse

Abstract

Regardless of their ubiquity, the design of digital visual identifiers for sound and music has been disregarded in published discourse that is instead dominated by covers as printed packages primarily dedicated to Anglo-European contexts and the identity of music albums (rather than EPs or single tracks). My research proposes a shift in focus and brings attention to Palestine. It examines two digital visual identifiers for experimental soundtracks by Palestinian artists – Asma Ghanem’s Homeland Is … (2016) and Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme’s Contingency (2010) – through a representational analysis with an emphasis on semiotics. These case studies indicate ways that digital visual identifiers for sound can significantly contribute to an otherwise delimited discourse. Moreover, this article impacts the field of design studies by providing groundwork and paving the way for further research.