NOAI
Music, motion, logos and letters; a collaboration between friends
A collaboration between artists and friends
NOAI is the house and electronic music alias of celebrated jazz pianist and producer Daan Herweg. Born out of a need to make honest house music, collaborating with artists from the Amsterdam underground (amongst others: Luuk Van Dijk, SemiFrench, Maria Christensen and Allan Eshuijs). Real people, real musicians caught in the groove (and guaranteed no AI).
Daan is also a life long friend (whom I’ve collaborated with here and there before), so drawing a custom logo for this new alias not only sounded like a lot of fun (carte blache with a sprinkle of Aphex Twin), but also like an excellent opportunity to experiment with audio and variable font technology.
Sometimes a logo designs itself. Sketching on paper, absorbing the music, making the connection between the shapes of letters, woofers and equalizers, quickly led to an animated proof of concept, and subsequently to the final version driven by audio (and a mini identity for things like avatars, banners and teasers).
After Sundown
Getting caught in the groove, realizing that (mini) variable fonts procedurally driven by audio, would make for interesting video clip experiments, more letters were drawn and tested. And although some things work better than others, somewhere along the way, experiment turned into video clip.
After Sundown is a groovy club house track released by music artists SemiFrench and NOAI. It serves as a follow-up collaboration to their previous joint release Sans Regarder, leaning into a club-oriented sound with a prominent bassline.
Spotify here.