Week 2: Answers

As a recap, my question was "how can graphic design teach and connect various cultures through music". This might change since talking to people.

Last week's post was a huge ramble of possible answers. Since then, I have limited it down to 4 solutions or answers.

1. Community based where there is group interaction and one on one interactions.
2. Interactive like a radio station or suggest music based on iTunes.
3. Pen pal where users would get a new "partner" from another country for a week. In this week (or whatever length of time), they would share and educate each other about their cultures. After that time frame, they would be connected with other people with the same taste in music.
4. Newspaper setup where the app self updates based on WiFi or it updates once a week when the user plugs it into their computer. It would essentially be a newspaper of music showcasing what is new or what is trending in the different countries.

I'm leaning towards cutting out option one right now since it seems like the first answer and I would like to do something different. Below are sketches that I've been working on just on how it could look. The numbers don't correlate to the ideas above.

I've also been looking at categories and have decided on splitting countries based on continents. After the continents would be country suggestions. Right now, it is based on the larger countries but I could expand to include many more. Based on continents, there would be six categories and I would like to coordinate colors to them. So below is the color option. It's still up in the air but this is kind of what I am going for.

For next week, we have an answers presentation and I would love to spend a week on thorough research about the countries and music and the history.