Looking back on over three decades of work as a creative professional, I’m compelled to share the story that brought me here, from music to multimedia to writing, has shaped my career and understanding of identity, and the power of the creative process. I hope these reflections offer insight to anyone who, like me, has followed their passions across disciplines, technologies, and borders in search of something lasting and true.
My story begins as a young boy in Montevideo, Uruguay, during the political unrest of the 1970s. In the wake of Uruguay’s military coup d’état, my family left the country and settled in Canada, carrying with us the traditions of our cultural homeland in northwestern Spain. Although we were welcomed into our new home, the turmoil of that time left a lasting impression on me, instilling a deep scepticism of militarism, and a reluctance to return to Uruguay given certain family ties to the regime.
Amidst the urban energy of Toronto, I found grounding in visual art and music, two passions that shaped the course of my life. I received a guitar for Christmas in my first year in Canada, and soon began classical guitar studies at the Ontario Conservatory of Music. By mid-teens, an award-winning soloist and music teacher. Around the same time, I discovered a love for illustration and visual design. These threads of sound and image have remained entangled ever since.
Throughout high school, I played in several local rock bands, but in 1991, I founded Glueleg, an alternative-rock band that would define much of my creative twenties. As one of its principal songwriters, vocalists, and the band’s driving force, I poured myself into composition and performance, and the Chapman Stick, a contemporary multi-stringed instrument that added a signature texture to our sound.
Glueleg blended rock with avant-garde influences, pushing musical boundaries and resisting categorisation. We signed to a decent publishing deal with a major label, released four albums and two EPs, and toured extensively across Canada and the U.S. Our songs charted, our videos received national airplay, and we carved out a modest but loyal following. While the world has changed, our music still lives on through digital platforms, and every now and then someone reaches out to say a song meant something to them. That connection, ephemeral, emotional, continues to move me.
In the early 2000s, my creative direction pivoted. With the rise of the World Wide Web and the growing cultural influence of video games and new media, I sought out freelance work as a multimedia producer. I had spent years in recording studios and on video sets, and those experiences translated well to the evolving digital landscape. One book in particular, Alvin Toffler’s The Third Wave, deeply influenced my thinking at the time, its vision of an information-driven society inspired me to reimagine my role not just as a musician, but as a designer of experiences.
By 2003, I had acquired enough programming skills to develop a multimedia engine for producing interactive music videos, an innovation that allowed audio, animation, and real-time interaction to converge. This technology, hosted on Macromedia Shockwave (before Adobe’s acquisition), foreshadowed the kind of audio-visual interactivity that would later be popularised by franchises like Guitar Hero. It marked my entry into digital experience design, a space where music, and code could speak a new language.
Over this time, I expanded into motion graphics, sound design, scripting, and post-production. I also began building a network of talented creatives, hiring, mentoring, and helping them shape their own paths. This period introduced me to global collaboration and reinforced a belief I still hold: that digital design is not just technical work, but a narrative craft.
In the 2010s, I launched ALONSO.studio, a digital design agency operating out of a converted barn on my finca in Terra Nova, Ontario. It became a creative hub for projects spanning fintech, global logistics, software, education, and the arts. At its heart was a desire to build “transformative experiences” — not just slick interfaces, but immersive, emotionally grounded work that could inspire, inform, and move.
Clients have included SAP, Santander, and Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Every project has presented a different challenge, but the throughline has always been the same: to bring story to life through design and technology. I believe deeply in the role of aesthetics in experience as a form of meaning-making, over simple decoration.
During this time, I returned to live music, performing classical guitar in small bistros and venues across the Georgian Triangle. That return to sitting and simply playing became vital. Eventually it led me to Bodrum, Turkey, where I lived for two years, performing at boutique resorts and managing digital projects remotely. It was a chapter of cultural richness, solitude, and renewal.
Moving into the late 2010s, I recorded more music. One of the great joys of that period was spending two months at Real World Studios recording my second album, inspired by the landscapes and experiences of the Aegean. That record marked a kind of full circle for me: a return to music for its own sake, composed with a sense of place, and stillness. No commercial expectations. I followed what felt honest.
In recent years, I’ve begun re-establishing my roots in Spain. I’ve collaborated with institutions in Madrid, and now divide my time between Toronto and the Cantabrian mountains, where I’m building a remote home studio, composing music and writing, deepening my connection to land and heritage.
Throughout my creative journey, I’ve always had an independent fascination with neuroscience and philosophy, drawn to the mysteries of emotion, and memory, and how we make meaning from them. The very roots of creative process and identity, after all.
As I reflect on this journey, I’m reminded of how non-linear creative life can be. From the alt-rock stages of the ’90s to the deep code of digital product design, from solo concerts to speculative fiction, my path has been shaped by the belief that creativity itself is borderless.
For me, music and design are two sides of the same impulse: the desire to communicate something true. And now, with writing as a new home, I feel like I might be weaving it all together. String, screen, and story.
Carlos Alberto Alonso | Toronto, 2023
