Hedroom
HEDROOM™ is a space for people making music to share what they're working on, without having to package everything as a finished release. Fragments, loops, experiments and finished tracks all have a place.
Inspired by the freedom and individual expression of the early web, Hedroom lets users create customizable, audio-reactive artifacts and arrange them freely in their own Listening Room.
The product was conceived, designed and built in-house under Think with Your Eyes, the Design Office's incubator for independent projects.
The homepage features a continuous conveyor of curated artifacts, serving as an entry point for discovering music across the platform.
The emphasis is on the artifacts themselves, creating a more visual and exploratory way to discover what people are making, rather than navigating a conventional feed of tracks.
Each artifact is a self-contained, interactive object that responds to the music it contains. The examples below can be played and explored directly, offering a closer look at how sound and visuals come together.
Every user gets a Listening Room, essentially a blank canvas that can be arranged however they like.
Artifacts can be moved, resized and positioned freely, without the constraints of a prescribed grid or template. The idea was to bring some of the individual expression of early personal websites into a more refined, contemporary framework.
The Artifact Studio is where each piece is created and customized. Users can work with shapes, particle systems, freehand drawing and imported images, adjusting materials, lighting, color and other properties to create something entirely their own.
Almost every aspect of an artifact can be made audio-reactive, with granular control over which visual properties respond to different parts of the audio, and to what degree.
The interface takes subtle cues from music hardware, using sliders, knobs and precise controls to make a relatively technical process feel familiar and approachable.
The Studio was also designed to work on mobile, adapting its controls and creative tools to smaller screens while maintaining the same level of flexibility and functionality.
The visual identity is intentionally minimal, allowing the artifacts themselves to provide much of the personality. Like a gallery, the surrounding environment is designed to give the work space, while maintaining its own distinct character.
Motion plays an important role in achieving that balance. Blurred transitions, subtle shifts in focus and elements appearing and disappearing give the experience a slightly ethereal quality, creating an interesting contrast with the crisp, technical nature of the Artifact Studio.
From the animated logo to the hardware-inspired controls and smaller graphical interactions, Hedroom's visual language is deliberately minimal but carefully considered.
Much of the product's character comes through in these details, with subtle animations and precise interactions bringing a level of craft and personality to an otherwise restrained interface.
