DESIGN AND MUSIC

MUSIC IS DRAMA

the tricky design of K-Drama soundtracks

By Ji Yun Kim

A new design for selling

Everywhere you go in Seoul, people talk about charts, the music charts. People listen to music all the time. When they are depressed, lonely, excited, or in any emotional state of mind and doing homework, working, taking a walk, going to sleep, or any other task. Music is everywhere. Since music is such a crucial element that can exist under any condition, it’s not surprising that it is at the forefront of Korean television drama. Korean film is known for its extensive use of background music, even more so than American, European, and other Asian countries, bolstering and amplifying the intensity of a scene. If Korean movies abuse the use of music in this regard, you can imagine how music is used in Korean soap operas. Due to this aesthetic predilection, the number of soundtracks for K-dramas has increased and gained in popularity. Around 2013, album cover design began to change as a way of recognizing the way music has become integral to the very idea of drama. A new trend was settling in and a new way of thinking about pop music had begun.

Without a doubt, each and every drama must have a well-thought out soundtrack and the music must be crucial and integrated into the drama. We can see this in Extraordinary You, Goblin, Hotel Del Luna, and When the Devil says Your Name. And what’s fascinating is how, no matter what the drama, the marketing and the design of the music is remarkably similar.

There are many ways to sell

The three mainstream music companies in Korea are Loen Entertainment, Stone Music Entertainment, and 1theK Entertainment. 1theK is a branch created under Loen Entertainment. Since 2015, Loen Entertainment has been a leading record company in Korea, now having expanded its field into the talent agency, music production, event management, and concert production after its founding in 1978. Most record label companies take part in the entertainment field as a whole, working in many parts of the music industry. Today, Loen is part of KaKao M, a subsidiary info several other record label companies. According to the data, 93.9% of the revenue comes from online music sales.

Melon, Bugs, and Genie Music are some of the popular music charts in Korea. There are always news articles published about these charts and even the charts outside of Korea such as the Billboard which is used worldwide. How important are the charts? Nowadays, CDs and mixtapes are outdated. Our main source of music is the internet or subscription-based labels like Apple music, Spotify, etc.

Everyone rushes to check the top 100 once a new song is released. Bands that have small fan bases are less likely to enter the top 100 charts, and moving up the charts requires fans who will manipulate the system. For instance, when BTS’s new song was released at midnight at Melon Music’s website, fans streamed it until it hit number one on the charts. Another instance could be on a debut anniversary or a case when a fairly unknown group suddenly starts to garner attention from the public through a show. Music charts are always on the fans’ “to-do list” of rooting for their bands. Like K-pop fandom, “K-drama fandom” works in a similar way.

The drama of music, the music of drama

Without a doubt, there are some fans of K-pop who watch K-dramas solely because they or a member of a band they follow is part of the cast. Through this connection, they would also listen to the music of the drama and look up the soundtracks on YouTube. Sometimes, K-pop bands produce and/or sing in the drama if one of its members happen to star in it, or if one of its cast works for the same company label as the artist. Not just through the K-pop fandom but also through the fans of K-dramas, charts have in recent year, reflected the songs from popular K-dramas.

Recent dramas have a playlist of soundtracks that have a system of album covers. The color palette plays a role in unifying the design. The tone and content of the photos all go through with the theme of the drama and the mood of the design. Playful dramas mostly use soft, playful, and pastel tones while a mystery or dramatic dramas use toned down colors that employ shades of gray.

As soft as moonlight

Most of the dramas today use type that has its own character to it: A handwritten type. The photography is the main element of the design which contains a still of a particular scene from the drama or one of the posters of the drama. These photos also align with the theme of the cover in color and positioning of the characters: Usually the female lead and male lead. Today, dramas seem to use more photos of their female lead characters than male lead characters as the album cover. That's probably because the ratio of female lead photos alone seem to be greater than the male lead alone or with the female lead. In some cases, if the specific track is for another pair of characters in the drama, the two would be on the cover. Here we can see what we might call dramatization of music.

One interesting element that all album covers seem to love is an enclosed space. Every album has some enclosed area that holds the photo into a frame. For instance, one drama titled Extraordinary You has a book-shaped frame designated for the photo and the type playing around it because the drama’s setting is inside a comic book. However, there are other dramas that have no reasonable connection to the plot of the drama to be using an enclosed area: except for the reason of creating a unified sense of branding. There are variations of geometric shapes of squares and circles full of color and illustrations. Those covers that do not use hand-written type use a single-line border that sits within an inch of the cover.

The leads are dramatic in Hotel Del Luna

For instance, from the drama Hotel Del Luna, the soundtrack covers all use a unified set of hand-written text for the title of the song and the artist. The text “original sound track part #” runs along the side of the cover, using a color from the photo. There is a transparent enclosing shape that wraps under the type and photo, which also uses the colors from the photo. These photos you see are stills from the drama itself. Most of these cover photos are of the female lead and both the leads of the drama.

However, in the drama Be Melodramatic, the covers have a single border line staying within consistent increments of the cover. The artist’s name is in bold and the title of the song is portrayed in a unique way: With a hashtag.

It's all very melodramatic

Overall, the music industry has been paving its way into a more crucial position and dominating a larger portion of production of dramas. Since people find soundtracks to be so integrated within the drama and show much affection for the soundtracks even outside the drama, music industries have been working to improve the quality of the album cover designs from behind the scenes.

Personally, I like to see these beautiful designs and the way they all hold together when I scroll down my iTunes music recent downloads. As a graphic designer, I feel the definite trend but somewhat flexible system puts me at ease and urges me to download the whole collection. Also, the system allows me to decipher among the other music genres, creating a new genre solely for K-dramas.

©Ji Yun Kim and the CCA Arts Review