Case study 04 / 05
Kanal Records
Covers drawn by the music itself
A visual system that turns every release into its own cover, drawn from the track's tempo and key.
- Client
- Kanal Records, an independent label for club music
- Services
- Identity, Generative design, Motion
- Year
- 2025
01
The brief
Forty releases a year and no budget for a designer on each one. The covers looked like they came from forty different labels, and the label itself had no face.
02
What we did
We wrote a small program that draws each cover from the release's tempo and key: 128 beats per minute becomes 128 stripes, and the key sets the colour. Every record is different, and together they read as one family. The same rules animate the visuals for live sets.
03
What changed
A new cover now takes minutes, not a week, and fans have started collecting the series by colour.
The results
40
covers a year from one system
128
stripes for 128 beats per minute
The poster series
Printed on the studio's risograph in two inks, the way every Nova project starts.
01 · Yellow & Black
02 · Pink & Blue
03 · Teal & Black
Kanal Records is a made-up client, like Nova Studio itself. The brief, the work and the numbers are part of a portfolio piece.