1st Edition

The Routledge Handbook of Sound Design

Edited By Michael Filimowicz Copyright 2025
    382 Pages 49 B/W Illustrations
    by Focal Press

    The Routledge Handbook of Sound Design offers a comprehensive overview of the diverse contexts of creativity and research that characterize contemporary sound design practice. Readers will find expansive coverage of sound design in relation to games, VR, globalization, performance, soundscape, and feminism, amongst other fields.

    Half a century since its formal emergence, this book considers sound design in a plethora of practical contexts, including music, film, soundscape, and sonification, as well as the emerging theoretical and analytical approaches being used in scholarship on the subject. The Routledge Handbook of Sound Design tracks how ideas and techniques have migrated from one field to the next, as professionals expand the industry applications for their skills and knowledge, and technologies produce new form factors for entertainment and information.

    Collectively, the chapters included in this volume illustrate the robustness and variety of contemporary sound design research and creativity, making The Routledge Handbook of Sound Design essential reading for students, teachers, researchers, and practitioners working on sound design in its many forms.

    Chapter 1: "Listener perspective in games and virtual reality" by Isak de Villiers Bosman, Kristine Jørgensen, Oğuz ’Oz’ Buruk, and Juho Hamari 

    Chapter 2: “Sciences of sound design. Research in sound design and its interactions with the design discipline” by Nicolas Misdariis

    Chapter 3: "The Globalisation of Sound Design" by Tom A. Garner

    Chapter 4: “Enacting the Environment Through Sound—Reflections on the Use of Cognitive Metaphors as a Design Framework in Sound Interaction Design” by Mads Walther-Hansen

    Chapter 5: “Cultivating sounds: relational acoustics within the Buchla-Serge paradigm” by Todd Barton and Adam Hulbert

    Chapter 6: “Acid Music and Sound Design: an examination of the sound design techniques used in a selection of acid music tracks” by Dylan Davis

    Chapter 7: "Managing Complexity in Multi-Device Environments" by Oliver Bown, Frederic Robinson, Kurt Mikolajczyk, Sam Ferguson

    Chapter 8: "Performative Sound Design: A Cultural Perspective on the Art and Craft of Foley" by Vanessa Theme Ament

    Chapter 9: “The sounds of televised sports” by Nicolai Jørgensgaard Graakjær

    Chapter 10: “Collaborative and Integrated Feminist Approaches to Sound Design” by prOphecy sun and Monique Motut-Firth

    Chapter 11: “The Soundtrack As An Acoustic Environment: Some Insights From Soundscape Research” by Ian Thompson

    Chapter 12: "Soundwalking: Three Acts of Attunement, Motion and Breath" by prOphecy sun, Reese Muntean and Freya Zinovieff

    Chapter 13: “Sound branding and brand sounds – Traits, types and origins” by Nicolai Jørgensgaard Graakjær

    Chapter 14: "Emotional Intent in Sound Design" by Neil Hillman

    Chapter 15: “Psychoacoustics in Sound Design” by Maximilian Kock

    Chapter 16: "Designing Sonic Interactions in Intelligent Reality with Egocentric Audio Technologies" by Alessandro Giuseppe Priviteraa and Michele Geronazzo

    Chapter 17: "Hidden Tracks – A Spatial Composition to Go" by Stefan Troschka

    Chapter 18: “The breakthrough of consultancy in music production: A political economy of sound design in the ‘creative economy’” by Christophe Magis

    Chapter 19: "Everyday Sound through the Ears of the Professional Sound Designer" by Tom A. Garner

    Chapter 20: “We Have Always Been Modular: Modularity as Production Paradigm for Music in Platform Society” by Anders Reuter

    Chapter 21: "Sonification and Sustainability" by Sandra Pauletto

    Chapter 22: “Cinematic Crosstalk and Psychotechnological Spaces: Understanding the soundtrack’s materiality, multimodality and embodiment through conceptual blending” by Adam Melvin and Brian Bridges 

    Biography

    Michael Filimowicz is an award-winning AI artist and University Senior Lecturer in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT) at Simon Fraser University. He has a background in computer mediated communications, audiovisual production, new media art and creative writing. His research develops new multimodal display technologies and forms, exploring novel form factors across different application contexts including gaming, immersive exhibitions, and simulations.