Scandinavia has once again come out with a design aesthetic that’s both practical and sleek. Finnish entrepreneur Timo Poijärvi’s new App lets us get out of the (search) box and rethink how we approach music discovery.

Hitlantis (available the App Store) is a search engine that allows users to visually browse through music, which drives how music is monetized by artists whose songs are found and purchased. Songs are sold on a pay-what-you-want basis, and the more fans pay for them, the closer the band’s bubble gets to the center of Hitlantis’ sea of content.

While Hitlantis is not yet populated with mainstream North American music (60% of songs are Finnish), it has the potential to become the world’s biggest music hub. By curating songs from all over the world in a single place, music search will happen on a more [...]]]>

Screenshots of Hitlantis, a visual discovery engine for the world's music.

Scandinavia has once again come out with a design aesthetic that’s both practical and sleek. Finnish entrepreneur Timo Poijärvi’s new App lets us get out of the (search) box and rethink how we approach music discovery.

Hitlantis (available the App Store) is a search engine that allows users to visually browse through music, which drives how music is monetized by artists whose songs are found and purchased. Songs are sold on a pay-what-you-want basis, and the more fans pay for them, the closer the band’s bubble gets to the center of Hitlantis’ sea of content.

While Hitlantis is not yet populated with mainstream North American music (60% of songs are Finnish), it has the potential to become the world’s biggest music hub. By curating songs from all over the world in a single place, music search will happen on a more even playing field; music won’t get lost in what Poijärvi refers to as the “digital swamp”.
It’s good lookin’ and functional!

We dig.

The animation will be up on the music waste website and should be playing here and there on a loop during the festival. It was meant as a sort of fun little art project that could be projected at any venue. As you can see, the animation takes you on a trip through the history of music players from the gramophone all the way up to the mp3 player.

1998creative has been working on a few other design elements for this year’s [...]]]>

Today we’re going to show you a little something that Global Mechanic’s own 1998creative came up with for this year’s Music Waste. Some of you might be wondering what Music Waste is. Well, it’s a music art and comedy festival held at various venues all over Vancouver. It goes from June 2nd to June 5th 2010. For more info on venues and artists please visit the music waste website here.

The animation will be up on the music waste website and should be playing here and there on a loop during the festival. It was meant as a sort of fun little art project that could be projected at any venue. As you can see, the animation takes you on a trip through the history of music players from the gramophone all the way up to the mp3 player.

1998creative has been working on a few other design elements for this year’s Music Waste. Stick around to see what else we’ve come up with.

-Justin