About S.o.D.

Wassily Kandinsky once wrote that all honest art serves to fulfill the inner need of the artist. He believed that all things have souls, and only through artistic creation can the artist represent these souls—and their experience of the world—in true form.

In 2023, Ty Lettau told me that work that explores is never wasted. His personal design label, Sound of Design, stemmed from a formative moment when he saw a sheet of music box paper in an antique store and began thinking about design through the lens of sound. What does it mean to hear creativity? How can we tune into it?

Soul of Design is my pet project and working design label. Inspired by Kandinsky’s Concerning the Spiritual in Art and building on Lettau’s Sound of Design, it embodies something I will spend years trying to understand:

What does it mean to be an artist in the postmodern era?

To me, the Soul of Design exists within every successful brand. Behind every striking marketing campaign, every intuitive software application, and every beautifully crafted website is an artist—fulfilling an inner need to create while meeting corporate goals.

It’s a tightrope walk between what people need and what they don’t yet know they want.
I hope that as I walk it, I grow more balanced between the beautiful and the functional.
I hope that as I walk it, you offer feedback and walk it with me.

Ashlee Peterson