Design and Music Videos: A Creative Alliance

My early days in photography were spent at concerts, so music has always been a huge part of who I am. It has this unique ability to connect people, build community, and show up for us in every kind of moment.

When music meets the audiovisual world in the format of the music video, something almost magical happens. The music drives the visual narrative, while the image amplifies the emotion of the song. They don’t just complement each other. They elevate each other.

Today, the music video has become an art form in its own right, where every element is carefully considered. And graphic design is increasingly playing an expressive role —not just a functional one—, fully integrated with the music and the image to create a singular experience.

Within this evolution of the music video as a multidisciplinary work, there’s one component that often goes unnoticed but carries enormous narrative potential: the credits.

As someone from Galicia, and a huge fan of the incredibly talented creative community here, I’m going to champion some local work and share a few music videos that perfectly illustrate the connection between graphic design and storytelling.

One of them is Marimondra by Mondra, a video that transports you to a very singular fruit shop. Here, the graphic design work by Zeltia Iglesias is woven directly into the storytelling, becoming an active part of the video’s aesthetic and conceptual universe. From the opening credits, the visual language pulls you into a symbolic world where typography and composition don’t just accompany the story. They reinforce its message: a celebration of creation in Galician and of cultural diversity. It’s a powerful example of how design, far from being mere decoration, becomes a narrator in its own right. One that communicates, shapes, and establishes a unique identity for the piece.

This kind of approach shows us that graphic design has the capacity to add real depth to a piece: it nuances emotions, activates cultural references, and extends the narrative beyond the audiovisual frame. It doesn’t just accompany what’s happening on screen. It expands it, interprets it, and sometimes even reframes it entirely.

That same expressive power shows up in O Último Baile by De Ninghures, where the graphic design —by Iago Barreiro— goes beyond the credits and runs throughout the entire piece via the subtitles. Here, words coexist with emojis that don’t just convey information but become part of the video’s visual language. In this case, design acts as an additional channel of communication, complementing what we see and feel on screen with a real sense of sensitivity and intention.

All of these examples share something in common: a holistic vision of the music video as a total work of art. Increasingly, music videos are conceived not as a visual backdrop for a song, but as a space where music, image, and design speak from the same place.

This integrated creative process encourages the development of a visual identity that is clear, consistent, and powerful. One where each music video becomes another chapter within a larger universe.

And that’s exactly what the band el nido has achieved with their latest album, La constancia. Every song has a music video with a shared aesthetic, both visually and graphically. From the intro to the subtitles to the closing credits, every detail has been thoughtfully crafted by Xaver Allgäu. His design acts as a through-line that gives the whole project cohesion and depth, reinforcing the idea that no single music video exists in isolation.

After reading through these examples and watching the videos, one thing becomes clear: graphics are not just a matter of style. They’re a creative and communicative tool that can add enormous value to a piece. Taking the time to think carefully and design with intention —down to every graphic detail— is, in its own way, writing part of the story. In my view, we’re living through a moment where interdisciplinarity is becoming one of the main engines of artistic innovation.