Lindsey Vento is the Artistic Director and Coordinator at The Academy Drum and Bugle Corps, Blue Springs HS, and Vista Ridge HS to name a few, and is an active and sought after designer, programmer, choreographer, and adjudicator with Bands of America.

As a creative, I am always asked a loaded question: “how do you start your design process?” 

I also—always—tend to have a loaded answer: simply put, there doesn’t seem to be one way, especially when designing for multiple groups, each with very different makeups.

So, this time, I'll be asking myself and others what DOES come first? The chicken or the egg? What informs other designers first, and how many ways are there actually? 

To me, it seems like asking Van Gogh if he selected his canvas first, his paint colors first, his artistic vision first, or the meaning behind it first. At the end of it all, it still results in a work of art, right? No matter his first step or choice. 

I personally have found myself starting my design process from the methods listed below, none being more “correct” or warranted than another. Different approach, same result. Sure, I have a preferred method, and one I lean toward the most, but that still doesn’t negate the value in the other approaches.

Does the music come first?

I know many programs who first select their music source material first and foremost, and from there, the other pieces reveal themselves. 

They hear the music and the form and structure and then become inspired to make selections such as aesthetics, the program's possible motif, and the show’s overall direction. Does this mean this is the team’s only focus? Well, of course not.

This is just what motivated the designers, in this instance, to realize and select the other key design pieces.

Does the “title” come first? 

Over the years, I have met with designers who have list of program titles that for whatever reason—whether they heard the phrase on a podcast, read it in a book, saw it on a billboard, thought of the poetic line in their own brilliant minds—made a long list of titles to come back to for the seasons that followed. I know from my personal experience in which I just recently selected a program title first (as the title was a direct connection to the team) and it worked as our jumping off point. 

Did this mean the other design pieces were less important or less informed? Absolutely not.

Do aesthetics come first? 

Let's say you have this prop idea brewing in your head that is accompanied with a distinct color pallet that informs the whole? 

There are many teams that have a “look” and a vibe about them, in all of the art which they field, and for them, that is the most important jumping off point. 

What is the costuming going to look like and from there, what music material and field landscape allows the best canvas for this?

Is "breaking down barriers" enough of a reason to do a show?

In today’s times, where the boundaries of design are so broken down and the field canvas is so open for new exploration, does one approach a program from the "breaking down barriers" thought process? 

I know a vast majority utilize this approach through their design process because leading the activity is so important, but, there are teams whose real intentions— FIRST intentions—are to do the new thing. The thing that no one has done. The thing that might even leave heads being scratched. 

That thing that possibly only the designers know the deep and true meaning of.

So. Many. Avenues. And the beauty of it? NONE of them are incorrect approaches, and honestly, all are actually correct. Isn’t art a glorious thing?

Over the next few weeks, I will be talking with some designers in our activity who can speak specifically to these exact approaches and shed some further light on the “whys” and the “hows” they choose said approaches along their design journey. 

Show design is just that…it’s a journey.