David
Elfström Lilja
A one-man agency, in the business since 1994. My first job was a web portal for NASA. The core is web, design and support, and because I also produce music and film, sound, visuals and motion are part of the deal. You always talk directly to me, and many clients stay for decades. Get in touch at mail@musicdesign.io.
Design
that sticks
Logos, album covers, posters, brochures, merch and visual identity. From first sketch to finished product, no middlemen.
Form & Print
Sketches, artwork and press-ready PDFs. I also deal with the printers and see the job through to delivery.
Social Media & Content
Graphics, strategy and content that keep the feed alive. I write the copy too, in the same tone as the rest of your identity.
AI & Automation
AI where it actually helps: image processing, generative graphics and automations plugged into the systems you already use. I build this daily, for clients and in products of my own.
Network & Specialists
On the rare occasion something falls outside my expertise, I have a network of photographers, copywriters and other specialists I trust.
Things the web says
can't be built
Advanced web apps, native apps, audio tools that run DSP in your browser tab and internal systems that run entire companies without anyone noticing. The larger platforms live under the I/O Lab studio flag.
Web Development & Apps
Brochure sites, WordPress, e-commerce, plugins and apps for web, iOS and Android. Basic SEO and fast load times come standard.
Internal Systems
Intranets, dashboards, CRMs and automations that quietly remove hundreds of hours of manual work per year.
Hosting, Domain & Email
The right web host, domain, email, DNS and SSL from day one. I set it all up, then keep looking after it for you.
Infrastructure
VPS fleets, CDNs, mail delivery, DNS, backups, monitoring. Boring on purpose. It just runs.
Selected from the lab
Real products with real users. Everything below is designed, built and operated by me, end to end.
talkback.seSaaS · Audio
Private audio sharing for artists, labels, producers and mastering engineers. Every download is invisibly watermarked per recipient, so a leaked file can always be traced back to its source. Versioned mixes, loudness QC, album mode and share links that expire.
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02
arstraumur.musicWebGL · Artist site
The home of the artist Árstraumur, built as an explorable solar system in three.js. A built-in player streams the music while you move between news, releases, remixes and lyrics.
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03
moist.musicWebGL · Artist site
An artist site built on a single idea: clean at rest, processed on touch. Nothing moves until you do. Then wet distortion and RGB channel splits bloom under the cursor over a reactive WebGL plasma.
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04
snowballpr.sePlatform · PR
A complete operations platform for a music PR agency. A newsletter engine handles the press sendouts while a secure audio portal lets journalists preview unreleased music through time-limited, password-protected links. Every open and play turns into analytics in the built-in press CRM.
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05
issview.comWeb · iOS
The view from the International Space Station, live in the browser. Real-time orbit tracking, a simulated astronaut window view of Earth, day and night rendering and pass alerts for your location. Also available as a native iOS app on the App Store.
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06
tb303.comWeb Audio
The legendary Roland TB-303 rebuilt in the browser. A 16-step acid sequencer driven by custom DSP in an AudioWorklet, two filter models, and a community where patterns are saved, shared and browsed. Free, no ads, no plugins.
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07
musiksnack.seCommunity · Apps
The meeting place for musicians in Gävle, Sweden. An open community with forums, a map of studios and venues, and video uploads with server-side transcoding. Ships as native apps for both iOS and Android.
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08
pong.gamesGame · WebRTC
Authentic 1972 Atari Pong, recreated pixel-perfect for the browser. Play against the machine, share a keyboard with a friend, or go online with matchmaking and real-time multiplayer over peer-to-peer WebRTC.
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09
sptfy.seWeb · Data
Spotify's 2000+ editorial playlists, finally browsable. Search and filter by genre, mood and region, watch follower counts live and preview every list in place. The overview Spotify never built.
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HQInternal · Label OS
The intranet that runs the record label I/O Music. Revenue aggregation with live currency conversion, streaming stats from multiple sources, release planning, artist self-service pages and a full audio analysis pipeline. Not public, and it never will be.
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Sounds as good
as it looks
It all started with music: a drum kit at age four, in 1975. Today a producer, artist and composer, with an ear you rarely find at a web agency.
Music, Sound & Film
Music production, sound design, voiceover, podcast jingles, film editing and post. All the way to the finished product.
Audio Engineering in the Browser
DSP in AudioWorklets, forensic watermarking, loudness analysis, waveform rendering and transcoding pipelines. Audio is home turf.
My main artistic focus today is Árstraumur: cinematic, space-inspired instrumental music. The latest album, Aurora, features Vince Clarke (Depeche Mode, Yazoo, Erasure) and was voted Best Album of 2025 by Cyclical Magazine. The record also won Ambient Album of the Year at the Schallwelle Awards, where I was nominated in the International Artist category.
Alongside it I release music as Moist, which leans more toward electro and pop-oriented songwriting, with collaborators like Smith & Thell, Krister Linder and Therese Grankvist. Over the years I have also made official remixes for Pet Shop Boys, Red Snapper, Lustans Lakejer, Dilba, Blacknuss and The Knife, while my own music has been reinterpreted by the likes of Tangerine Dream, Kebu, The Beloved, Johan Baeckström and, once again, Krister Linder.
I have composed music for short films and commercial productions, including projects for brands such as Kellogg's, Mobilix and SEB Deutsche Bank. My work has received three consecutive nominations at the Hollywood Music in Media Awards, a Swedish Grammis nomination for Best Electro/Dance for my collaboration with Håkan Lidbo, GAFFA nominations in 2024 and 2025, and the Söderhamn Cultural Prize.
Since 2011 I have also run the record label I/O Music, celebrating 15 years in 2026 and now home to the sister labels SleepyTown and Nordic Static. For clients, this means music, sound design and mixing held to the same standard I release records at.
Hear it in practice: talkback.se, tb303.com and Árstraumur in the Development section.
Kept safe,
kept running
Support agreements in two tiers that keep your site updated, secure and monitored. If something breaks, I am one email away.
Basic Plan
- WordPress & plugins kept up to date
- Security monitoring and incident response
- Fast email support when issues arise
- Regular checks to ensure everything works
Extended Plan More
- Everything in the Basic Plan
- Text and image updates
- Minor adjustments and additions
- Priority support with faster response times
The support agreements cover ongoing maintenance and minor updates, not new builds or redesigns. I also help with newsletters, email campaigns, email accounts, DNS and hosting: both the setup and the upkeep afterwards, so you never have to keep track of it all yourself. My longest-running client has been with me for over 25 years.
A selection since 1994
David
Elfström Lilja
Art director, graphic designer and web developer since 1994. The first web job arrived that same year and was, of all things, a portal for NASA, where researchers and departments presented their work. The client list has since grown long and quite entertaining: state-owned companies, municipalities, gyms, dentists, illusionists, songwriters, clothing brands and international artists.
I build both simple brochure sites, like the Olle Adolphson Society's, and entire platforms from the ground up, like ISSview with its companion iOS app. In between sit e-commerce, WordPress plugins and native apps.
Another build is Musiksnack, a community for the music scene in Gävle: discussion forums, a buy-and-sell market for instruments and gear, and a social feed much like Facebook, but only for the city's musicians. Available as both a website and an app.
The design side spans album covers, posters, merch and entire visual identities, and I also produce music, do sound design and edit film. AI is a daily tool in both pixels and code, but the pen stays in my hand.
One company, three branches: I/O Music releases the music, musicdesign.se does the design and I/O Lab builds the platforms and systems. The common denominator: an unhealthy obsession with sound and a habit of building things properly from the start.
The easiest way to reach me is via mail@musicdesign.io or the form.
A selection of clients over the years
What clients say
A few voices from the client list.
Get in touch
Tell me what you need help with. I usually reply within a couple of hours.
You can also email me directly at mail@musicdesign.io