Hasta La Ideas

Barcelona studio TwoPoints has designed a flexible identity system for music playlist site Tonangeber using a custom built graphics generator.

Tonangeber was founded by DJs Ani Antunovic and Beda San, who compile playlists and share them on the site for free. TwoPoints was asked to redesign the website and created a custom processing tool that can be used to generate covers for each playlist as well as imagery for packaging, posters and stationery.

The tool allows users to create designs using a range of shapes, colours and textures. Five forms are arranged around an invisible circle and can be rotated, stretched or distorted to make endless variations based on the same grid.

At present, there are twelve background colours and four textures including marble and stone to choose from, but TwoPoints says this could be extended.

“We can import as many textures as we like, [and] there is a huge number of possible shapes,” explains co-founder Martin Lorenz.

The studio says the identity is inspired by precious or rare gems and shapes are designed to look like “minerals in a petri dish.”

“Compiling playlists is like going on an expedition for Ani and Beda. They are searching for rare musical treasures. The graphics for the playlists are like small collections of rare, but beautiful treasures.”

Textures are based on photographs of stones and papers, explains Lorenz – including pictures taken in a graveyard near the studio’s Berlin office. Initial colour choices were based solely on personal taste, but Lorenz says the studio then had to devise a palette that would work with any possible combination.

The processor took around two months to build, in between other projects, but Lorenz says it was more complicated than expected.

“The visual system had to be flexible enough to express the mood of each playlist, but…coherent enough to create a recognisable brand. The diversity of colors in elements and backgrounds had to be planned very carefully, so every combination would work,” he adds.

It’s a simple visual system but the ‘supertool’ is a clever solution, allowing Antunovic and San to create an endless array of graphics for their site and design their own communications.