For more than two decades, Ryan Dickinson has worked in the world of music and sound, helping shape projects for global brands while building a career that spans advertising, gaming, television, and sonic branding.
Safe to say, he knows his way around a soundtrack.
Now, the Founder of made by ikigai, a music and sound agency built around a global network of more than 150 composers, sound designers, and artists, has launched Origami, a standalone brand built around the agency’s existing music catalogue. The catalogue features tracks composed by human artists and adapted to fit a client’s film or brief, formalizing a model the company has been running quietly with clients for more than a year.
We recently spoke with Dickinson to discuss the thinking behind Origami, the evolving role of sonic branding, maintaining a human-first approach to music and sound, and what brands that are underinvesting in sound should do first.
You describe the company as human-first in music and sound design, while also exploring AI in parts of the business. Where have you found AI genuinely useful, and where do you draw the line?
It’s something I had to give a lot of thought to. We are walking into the most dramatic shift in the working landscape that humans have ever seen, and that comment floating around the internet about getting AI to do our laundry and dishes really stuck with me. It got me thinking about what the joyful parts of our days are, the things worth hanging onto, versus the pain points I’d be happy to never see again.
For us the answer was obvious. Keep music and sound in human hands, because that’s the fun part and also what we’re best at. Then use AI to handle the stuff that fills the days outside of music and art: finance, operations, project planning, strategy, CRM. I wouldn’t say no AI on the creative side ever, because there’s just no way to keep it out of all workflows all the time.
It’s already a useful support tool for things like helping find music or making quick edits. But generative AI is the line I don’t want to cross. It takes away from the fun side of what we do, and it opens up a Pandora’s box around legal rights. Our clients need absolute confidence in that area, so it’s a hard line for us.
You’re launching Origami, a music catalogue that rethinks the approach to bespoke composing. How does it work in practice, and how did it become the core of what you do?
Before starting made by ikigai, my last few jobs were at larger bespoke music and sound agencies. I worked as a sound designer for a few years making music edits for films in the studio, and when I moved back to the music side that skill stayed with me. The ability to really craft a piece of music around the visuals is something I think humans will always have the edge on. It takes context, taste and curation that lived experience informs, and when it lands it can elevate what’s on screen well beyond what a nice piece of background music can do.
Matching the right music to the right visual moment can be magic, and the ability to hyper-craft that track to what we’re seeing on screen was something I was sure I wanted as the backbone of what became Origami. We have the talent and experience to cover just about anything in music and sound, but speaking with people across the industry made it clear that a fully adaptable catalogue was filling a real gap in the market and it became the core of what we do in a pretty natural way.
The ability to really craft a piece of music around the visuals is something I think humans will always have the edge on. It takes context, taste and curation that lived experience informs, and when it lands it can elevate what’s on screen well beyond what a nice piece of background music can do.
In practice, clients come to us with a budget and some references, ideally with the working edit too because that’s where we can give them the full experience. We curate a large selection of tracks from Origami and search for any other related vibes we think might fit. Then by auditioning the music against the film and making some broad stroke edits, there’s a natural culling process that happens internally before the client sees anything.
This usually gets us to a group of options which are more than a bespoke brief would deliver, but far less than a giant library pull. We then reshape the tracks into a broadcast-ready state so they can hear them working against the visuals. The key thing is all of this happens in around 24 hours, which is much faster than bespoke, and without the client spending hours searching through libraries before they’ve even seen if anything works.
You mentioned Origami as the backbone of what you’ve built. What’s the vision for it, and who is it built for?
The strapline is “Bespoke music, waiting for your story,” and I think that captures it. Origami is built for anyone making a film, an ad, or branded content who wants music that genuinely fits the work but doesn’t have the time for a full bespoke composition from scratch.
We’ve turned away far more music than we’ve accepted into Origami, so it’s highly curated even before we start hand-selecting tracks for a brief. The time has already been spent upfront securing rights, stems, and organising everything so we can work to fast deadlines. The aim was to remove the steps that take time without trading off on quality, while making sure the music stays highly tailored to every project. We’ve operated with the catalogue since day one but giving it its own name and identity now felt like the right moment.
The company works with over 150 composers, sound designers, and artists across styles ranging from K-Pop to death metal. How do you find the right sound for a brand?
It really depends on the job. If we’re working on music for a film, the direction is usually already pretty clear from what the director or creatives had in mind for the story. Our job is to dig into those directions and find or create as many great options as we can within the client’s budget, plus introduce a wild card or two they might not have thought about before.
Sonic branding is a different exercise. The job there is to understand the brand on a deep level and connect music and sound to as many of the brand’s pillars and aesthetics as possible. It’s really a journey of discovery, side by side with the brand landing on something that sounds like them, is flexible enough for all of their communications and still has a unique element which stands out from the crowd.
Sonic branding is a different exercise. The job there is to understand the brand on a deep level and connect music and sound to as many of the brand’s pillars and aesthetics as possible.
Having composing depth across a wide variety of genres was one of the cornerstones that I spent a lot of time on before launching the company. A K-Pop composer has a very different skillset to a death metal one, and they also need a different kind of network themselves when it comes to collaborators like vocalists. We spend time upfront getting to know our composers before they start working with us, because understanding the nuance of what they excel at and what secret weapons they have in the studio lets us match the right person to the right brief.
What are some trends in music and sound that you are seeing from both brands and consumers right now?
Two things are happening at once and they’re pulling in opposite directions. Brands are finally treating sound as a proper piece of the identity conversation, which is exciting. At the same time, the content explosion is flooding everything with AI-generated music, which is creating a real noise problem.
What I find interesting is that consumers are getting better at sensing when music feels empty, even when they can’t articulate why. There’s a texture and intention in music made by real people that I think audiences are starting to feel the absence of, even if they wouldn’t consciously name it.
What I find interesting is that consumers are getting better at sensing when music feels empty, even when they can’t articulate why.
From the brand side, I’m having more conversations where sound is baked into the brief from day one rather than added at the end. The gap I still see is in the follow through where brands commission a great sonic system and then don’t build the internal process to apply it consistently. That’s where the value leaks out.
Which brands outside of those you work with do you think get their sonic branding right, and what makes them stand out?
The term sonic branding gets thrown around a lot, and a lot of the time it simply means the company has a sonic logo (otherwise known as a bing bong). Which is a nice start, but a brand wouldn’t rely on just a visual logo either. They’d also have a colour palette, typography, guidelines, and a whole folder of assets they draw on daily.
Those things are always the starting point for communications and can have variation, but they’re always built from the same DNA. I like it when I hear a brand applying sonic assets consistently across a range of communications. It usually means the assets were created with enough flex built in, and that there’s a process or someone brand-side making sure it’s always front of mind.
McDonald’s is a bit of a cop-out pick since it’s pretty much the industry standard, but I’ll do it anyway because they execute absolute consistency while letting their key sonic logo stretch in many different directions to fit the message or story. Playing those 5 notes to people in most corners of the world would trigger the person to name the brand.
Another one I love is Bunnings Warehouse in Australia. You know immediately it’s from the brand the moment you hear that music. The combination of the brand name call-out with the strapline is done in such a way that you’re almost singing along. The music felt on-brand from day one, and they’ve held firm with it for decades, which gives the brand a really strong audio asset. That kind of recognition can only be earned with consistency over time.
What’s some work you’ve done that you’re most proud of, and why does it stick with you?
We worked on music and sound for a film called Go Mongolia recently, where a Mongolian artist called Batzorig Vaanchig, who is a throat singer and horse fiddle player was recorded on set. We took those recordings and built a full score around them, combining the traditional elements that made it feel truly Mongolian with instruments and textures you’re more used to hearing on a global stage, like cello and synths. They trusted us with the full sonic experience as well, getting to handle the sound design and final mix of the film, too. I always enjoy getting to oversee all audio elements through to the final stage.
It was a project where my vision of a global network of clients and collaborators without borders really felt like it came together. People from New Zealand to Estonia all working away while I was sending files back and forth between Japan and Australia. I attended Adfest for the first time last month and we won a silver for original music there, which was a really proud moment for me.
What advice would you give to brands that are underinvesting in sound, and where should they start?
Look for the easy wins. For me, that starts with removing sounds that are obviously out of step with how the brand wants to be perceived. Remove as much intrusive sound as possible from the user’s journey at every touchpoint and build from there. Not everyone will recognise good brand sound, but they will definitely notice bad ones. It doesn’t cost much to replace that annoying buzzer, update the in-store playlist, or fix that painful 20-second on-hold loop.
And for god’s sake, never let an employee play a YouTube mix that’s clearly 30 AI tracks tacked together at any location that represents your company.
Like nails down a chalkboard for me.
Quick Hits:
Your earliest favorite song:
East 17 – It’s Alright
A track or album you’ve had on repeat lately:
Sault – Acts of Faith, perfect sunny afternoon soundtrack.
A musician or composer more people should know about:
Jordan Rakei. If you don’t know about him, then you need to.
