It’s no easy task to sort out and interpret the role of designers in areas as diverse as product development, brand development, embodiment or space flight. When regarded from the outside, the interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary approach used by designers is often mistaken for invasiveness. From the interior point of view, on the other hand, many designers see impulses from the outside primarily as a menace and not as an enrichment of their work. Yet, it is precisely amateurs from outside the industry who are sometimes able to provide vital inspiration, as evidenced by current and historical examples.

Films need sound. Silent movies were accompanied by live music, at first to entertain the audience and later to accentuate the emotionality of the stories on the screen. When talkies where introduced in the late 1920s, it became possible to hear the actors’ voices and the locations and objects in the film: for the first time, it was possible to reproduce the diegetic sounds of the cinematic world in synchronicity with the picture and, like music, they became an integral part of film production.