Sharing music on my blog

Back in March, I added a new way to share music I’d been enjoying on my blog. This new post format was inspired by the iPod nano.

Whilst much of my website is pretty austere, these music posts were an opportunity to do something a bit more quirky. I’ve been leaning into that skeuomorphic aesthetic more since then.

Endlessly obsessed with futzing, I’ve decided to have a do-over with my early iPod experiment.

The original iPod nano posts looked like this…

A screenshot of a representation of an iPod nano in 2D projection with cover art for the 2024 album for the Eurovision Song Contest.
The original take on the iPod nano on my website. Each iPod nano is dynamically generated in the stream, based on a provided image of the album cover art.

This was based on a drawing from Wikimedia Commons. Separating that file into two layers – the device and the screen reflection – I then dynamically inserted artwork for whatever music I’m sharing in a re-usable, low effort way.

But it’s very ‘flat’.

With my newer gaming-focused posts are more three-dimensional: I’ve created a Nintendo Game Boy Game Pak, in isometric projection and dynamically inserted the box art into the image. For this iPod nano do-over, I’ve tried to do the same thing. Now, the music posts look like this:

A screenshot of a representation of an iPod nano in 2D projection with cover art for the 2024 album for the Eurovision Song Contest
The new isometrically reimagined iPod nano.

Harmless fun

This is a silly thing to have put into my website, but I think it’s more fun than just a picture and a title. And I think the isometric aesthetic is more fun than the 2D projection that came before it.

Check out all the iPods nano on my Music page.