A lightweight lyric creation tool for unlocking small sparks of creativity
[Untitled]
A lightweight lyric-writing tool built inside Untitled that helps artists capture scattered ideas, loop sections, punch in takes, and generate drafts
Project Duration
5 days
Industry
Music tech
Creator productivity
AI-assisted workflows
Team
Tools
Amy La (Designer)
Figma
Protopie
Notion
Justin Kim (Designer)
Piper Yu (Designer)
THE CHALLENGE
Turn idle time into moments of creative expression for creators
Our days are filled with unnoticed idle pockets we move through on autopilot, barely aware.
IDEATION
Reframing the “idle moment”
We started with the people around us - how they move through downtime, what fills those gaps.
Our guiding question: Where do sparks of creativity already live?
We began with our own lives
Communication was constant: calls, texts, scrolling - tiny interations make up the background of daily life.
Honing in on a space
We explored painting, doodling, and sketching, but one creative thread kept resurfacing: music.
We all listen while walking, commuting, or moving through the world, so we turned our focus to the people on the other side: the ones making the songs.
UNDERSTANDING
Tracing the origins of a song
Tracing the messy, early-stage moments beginnings of the songwriting process.
“Sometimes it begins with a melody stuck in my head, sometimes with a chord I’m playing with, and other times with a phrase I jot down in Notes.”
“My best songs come from personal experiences, but when I’m stuck, I might use a random word generator just to get going. Writers block happens.”
Ideas don’t appear fully formed
Ideas surface as scraps because songwriting starts in fragments long before it becomes anything structured.
Inspiration doesn’t happen in downtime
Inspiration hits randomly - on a walk, in the shower, on the train, etc.
Artists rush to capture thoughts before it slips away usually in the quickest (and least organized) tool nearby.
PROBLEM
Fragmentation kills momentum
We picture polished albums and smooth versus, but the real process is much messier.
Lyrical ideas get scattered across voice memos, notes, texts, or disappear entirely.
Writer’s block amplifies this
When artists hit a wall, they turn to RhymeZone, Genius, or a producer.
Existing tools don’t help them break out of that block. They only provide more text to sift through.
A CRITICAL INSIGHT
Modern music is written in chunks, not full verses
Hip-hop artists use punching in, recording one bar at a time, layering ideas.
The process
Older workflows revolved around writing the perfect verse before recording.
Now, artists drop into a single moment in the track, record a bar, adjust, refine, and keep everything intact.
What if lyric writing worked the same way as “punching-in”?
SOLUTION
Enable musicians to write lyrics the way they record them in fragments
Instead of a standalone tool, we designed an experience inside [Untitled], a playground for music.
Loop (“”Punch-in”) a specific section
Generate a draft based on recordings
Customize the rhyme pattern
DEEP DIVE
Building tools that support the creative process
We designing for creativity, giving artists momentum without taking the pen away.
Design for artists who want AI to nudge them forward, not take over.
Artists made it clear
They don’t want AI to write songs for them. They want help breaking blocks.
AI should support lyric creation, not overpower it. The balance is important.
Why not build a prompter?
Tools like Suno are impressive,but they remove the artist from the process. They produce fully formed songs through prompting, not malleable ideas.
DESIGN DECISIONS
Enable musicians to write lyrics the way they record them in fragments
Shaping the product around real creative habits.
Build inside [Untitled], not beside it
Artists already share WIP tracks with [Untitled]. Adding lyric tools directly into this flow means zero new habits to learn - just a natural extension.
Bring structure to unstructured creativity
Rhyme patterns are hard to visualize when you’re deep in writing. Our rubric surfaces structure early, helping artists refine without breaking flow.
Move away from prompt-based generation
Instead of asking users to type what they want, we use their recordings to shape their lyrics, preserving authenticity through collaboration.
A few key takeaways
RESULTS
We pitched to a room of leading industry designers
Music isn’t made in perfect versus. It’s made in fragments, so designing for that reality unlocked our solution.
Design for the process, not outcome
AI should support, not overshadow
The moment AI crosses into “taking over,” artists lose trust. That line shaped our design decisions.
Product thinking and design reinforce each other. Building inside [Untitled] kept the solution familiar to artists.
Design for the ecosystem
Crafting the narrative alongside the product clarified the decisions that aligns with our target users.
Tell the story as you design
Reach out if you want to see earlier explorations, alternate flows, or the thinking that didn’t make the final cut.
ADDITIONAL EXPLORATIONS
Plenty more lives in the design archive
2025 @ Maya Parthasarathy
X