The Playlist: Designer Katarina Häll
Freelance product, furniture, interior, and exhibition designer Katarina Häll likes to combine simple, stripped shape expressions with colorful details and poetic touches—much like the playlist she created for us this week. Take a listen at this Stockholm-based multitasker’s upbeat mix.
What do you listen to while you work? It depends very much on what I’m working with, what kind of concentration it requires, what mood I’m in, what kind of weather it’s outside, or what the actual work needs to get inspired. If I start a new project, for example, I have to listen to something I’m familiar with and don’t have to concentrate on. It’s often something from my early years in the 90′s like Smashing Pumpkins, The Cure, Stone Roses, Kate Bush—familiar sounds that I know by heart help me focus. But if I am in the middle of a job that requires more routine and less creativity, I listen to newer music within the broad category of pop/rock. Some of my favorites at the moment are Disciplin, Beach House, and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.
How do you listen? For some reason, I have not come to the point where I’ve invested in a real speaker system—so, unfortunately, through the computer speakers.
Do you have any favorite music websites/providers? I listen to Spotify a lot and sometimes to the music at Soundcloud. I sometimes listen on the Internet-radio app SHOUTcast on my phone. Luxuria Music is also a station with an odd, nice mix that I like.
Does music influence your work? Music influences me in that way that it can put me in a mood that inspires me to come up with new ideas. I love traveling to music. Road trips or train travels. The landscape that flashes by and the music that enhances the experience. Both my furniture collections Save and the Corrected Cabinet have been created during such trips.
Who influences your musical taste? Often from friends and magazine reviews. And from Spotify, where I can get suggestions on artists that are similar to the ones I listen to. It also lets me see and listen to other friends’ playlists.
What song or artist best represents the work you create? It’s difficult to compare my work with something as great as music. But if I have to, it would be the Swedish pop singer Jenny Wilson. She and her music are colorful, creative, dreamy, and yet straight to the point.
KATARINA’S PLAYLIST
Strange Kinda Feeling, Disciplin
We Have Everything, Young Galaxy
The Worst Taste in Music, The Radio Dept.
Stay Alive, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Geraldine, Glasvegas
Norway, Beach House
Dream Baby Dream, Suicide
To Sheila, Smashing Pumpkins
River En Vacker Dröm, Håkan Hellström
Who Are You, Scarlett Johansson
My Boy, Duffy
Let My Shoes Lead Me Forward, Jenny Wilson
Images courtesy Katarina Häll