World Building for Independent artists.
Applicant: Tracy Sada
Programme: MRes Creative Practice
Introduction
My interest in world-building began outside of music, while working as a retail assistant for the fashion brand COS (H&M group). Staff were trained to understand the organisation’s Red Thread concept, a way of connecting the brand’s values, products, visual presentation and customer experience. From minimalist clothing, shop layouts, digital platforms, and even plants selection, everything was carefully considered. The concept demonstrated the power of cultivating culture and audiences, while consistent design, messaging, and curation could shape behaviours, perceptions, and loyalty. Initially, this felt overwhelming and financially out of reach for an independent artist. Over time, however, I realised that I had been instinctively creating similar ideologies in my own practice.
Looking back, this way of thinking is closely tied to my background in fashion promotion and imaging, alongside my experience working as a fashion stylist, where I developed an understanding of styling, branding, and visual identity as systems rather than isolated elements. Although I later moved away from formal study, this training continues to inform my creative approach.
As a self- taught musician and visual artist, I have released music, DIY short films and independent radio shows, as well as organised music jams and art showcases. Without consciously naming it, I too was shaping the contexts through which audiences encountered my music. This led me to understand that artistic practice extends beyond individual outputs; it involves constructing an ecosystem of experiences, aesthetics, and values that provide audiences with a sense of belonging.These creative worlds can capture shared beliefs, cultural roots, and emotional stories, spreading across both physical and digital spaces, from performances and installations to merchandise and social media.
Research Problem and Gap
Artists such as Bowie, Grimes and The Weeknd demonstrate how coherent aesthetic and narrative worlds make work instantly recognisable, while the likes of Virgil Abloh’s interdisciplinary practice across fashion, music, design, and art exemplifies how intentional design elements unify diverse outputs. These examples suggest that world-building operates as a transferable framework across creative disciplines and offers opportunities for independent musicians to expand the impact and cohesion of their practice.
World-building is widely explored in branding, film, and visual culture, yet it remains under-theorised in relation to independent music practice. Existing research often separates music, image, and audience engagement into distinct areas, rather than examining how these elements are constructed together as part of a unified creative system.
At the same time, independent musicians are increasingly expected to operate across multiple platforms, including live performance, digital media, and visual identity. Despite this, there is limited framework for how cohesive artistic worlds can be intentionally developed, particularly within low-resource contexts.
Fashion provides a useful model for understanding how identity is constructed through consistency, repetition, and styling. However, these principles have not been fully translated into music practice. There is also an opportunity to consider how supporting ideas from visual art and film, such as fragmentation and non-linear storytelling, might inform how these worlds are structured and experienced, without displacing fashion as the central framework.
This project addresses these gaps by positioning fashion systems as a primary structure for understanding and developing world-building within independent music practice.
Aims and Research Questions
Purpose:
To develop and test a practice-led framework for world-building in independent music practice, using principles derived from fashion systems.
Research questions:
How can principles from fashion, such as consistency, repetition, and styling, be applied to world-building in my own music practice as an independent artist?
Methodology
This research adopts a qualitative, practice-led approach combining creative production, semi-structured interviews, and reflective analysis. Knowledge will be generated through making, with music, visual outputs, and live performance functioning as experimental case studies.
The primary framework is drawn from fashion systems, particularly the concept of a “red thread”, alongside repetition, styling, and constraint. These principles will guide the development of a cohesive artistic identity across sound, visuals, and performance. For example, this may involve working with a consistent sonic palette, repeating visual motifs, or shaping audience experience through staging and spatial decisions.
While fashion remains the central framework, selected ideas from visual art and film will be used as supporting tools. Concepts such as fragmentation, associated with Cubism, and non-linear narrative structures in film will inform how work is layered and experienced across different formats. These will be applied cautiously as structural influences rather than primary areas of study.
Alongside practice, I will conduct semi-structured interviews with 8–12 practitioners working across music, visual art, and curation. These interviews will explore how artists construct cohesive creative identities and audience experiences, particularly within independent or resource-limited contexts.
Data will include interview transcripts, reflective journals documenting my creative process, and audio-visual records of practice. Interview material will be analysed using thematic analysis to identify recurring strategies, while reflective analysis will examine how these insights relate to my own work.
Ethical procedures will include informed consent, the option for anonymisation, and secure data storage. The research acknowledges that world-building is shaped by cultural identity, access to resources, and individual context. As a practitioner-researcher, I will maintain a reflective journal to ensure transparency in how decisions and interpretations are formed.
Facilities and Resources
The University of West London provides an ideal environment for this project. Access to Townshend Studio’s synthesisers and samplers will support exploration of sound as a world-building tool, particularly in developing texture and atmosphere. Recording studios will enable the production of high-quality musical works as part of the research.
Performance spaces will allow experimentation with staging, spatial design, and audience interaction, while video facilities will support the visual dimension of the project. The academic environment will further support critical reflection and development of the research framework.
Expected Outcomes
The project will result in:
A practice-led portfolio demonstrating world-building strategies in music
A conceptual framework connecting fashion systems to music practice
Insight into how independent artists construct cohesive creative ecosystems
Practical approaches for artists working within limited resources
References
Abloh, V. (2019). *Virgil Abloh: Figures of Speech*. Rizzoli.
Baym, N. K. (2018). *Playing to the Crowd: Musicians, Audiences, and the Intimate Work of Connection*. NYU Press.
Evans, J., & Thomas, A. (2020). Branding and Identity in Creative Practice. *Journal of Visual Culture*, 19(2), 115–133.
Jenkins, H. (2006). *Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide*. NYU Press.
Storey, J. (2018). *Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction*. Routledge.