DIA Studio builds a generative tool that makes Nuits Sonores pulse

Since 2003, Nuits Sonores has transformed the French city of Lyon into an urban stage for electronic and independent music, drawing over 100,000 guests each year to concerts, DJ sets and cultural events across the city. The festival’s tradition involves inviting a different designer or studio annually to imagine its identity, with just one constraint: to preserve the existing logo. Everything else remains open territory. When Chamonix-based DIA Studio received the brief, they recognised an opportunity to explore something central to their practice: motion as the foundation of identity. “We began by exploring a broad set of sketches that were more graphic and typographic, drawing on pulsing forms, sound-wave references, and modular-synth ideas,” Creative Director Mitch Paone recalls. Early conversations with the Nuits Sonores team revealed another requirement that would shape the entire approach – they wanted software they could operate themselves to generate assets consistently, even beyond DIA’s direct involvement. This operational need steered the project toward a generative solution, one that could produce moving, interactive and static material across formats whilst maintaining creative range and efficiency. The underlying concept referenced European club and rave culture, seeking to portray the physical sensation of sound. “We wanted to visualise the impact of music and the pulse you feel in your body,” Paone explains. What emerged after extensive experimentation is a system that captures the sensation of sound pushing through space – a custom generative tool where letters and shapes behave like fragments of music, vibrating, scattering and recombining in constant motion.