Soho Radio’s rebrand features a bespoke tech tool to create custom DJ profiles

Soho Radio is an online radio station that broadcasts between Soho and New York City. It first opened its doors in Soho’s Great Windmill Street – a location that the Wonderhood Design’s office sits adjacent to. Recently, the studio took on it’s old neighbours rebrand – a new visual universe to mark ten years of tunes. Tommy Spitters, Wonderhood’s design director, took inspiration from Soho Radio’s original office to create this fresh look. “Behind the DJ booth they had chalkboards where each DJ had written their own name, creating something like a logo for themselves,” he tells It’s Nice That. It was this collaborative chalkboard led to Wonderhood Design’s core idea – a bespoke tech tool that curates a freeform ecosystem, allowing each DJ to create their own visual world, made in collaboration with Rob Peart at Testbed Studio.

Chaos is in and clean is out for Soho Radio. The team met the main design ask, to build something that clashed visually but worked together “to form something bigger than the sum of their parts”, says Tommy. The bespoke tool works by feeding in images of the DJs, with applications like texture, scale, cut, and re-positioning for the images, before randomising shapes and gradients from an inventory of assets to produce custom backgrounds. You can then choose type and colour palette. Tommy says: “There are 12 shows on Soho Radio every day of the week so they need to produce a large number of unique assets.” Each output can then be translated smoothly across web, app, and social, even including room for animation. To meet the demands of such a fast-paced environment like broadcast radio, this tech tool provides the ease whilst also offering scope for experimentation. This fine balance of flexibility and restriction ensures a system where consistency and taste can work in tandem.

Soho Radio’s new logo would look right at home on the walls of a club bathroom with its bright yellow outlining and smooth, wave-like lettering. But the challenge was understanding ways in which the logo and the bespoke profiles can work together. The sticker outline that all typefaces through the identity feature became the solution. “Because so many genres of music have such specific visual connotations the real trick was picking typefaces and colours that didn’t feel like they lent into one genre too much, while also getting typefaces with lots of character that all served a different purpose,” Tommy says. With the Soho Radio yellow at the colour palette’s heart, balance is struck between boldness and harmony.

This visual cohesion is an extension of Soho Radio’s values, which Wonderhood Design took on board with careful consideration. “Soho Radio aren’t just committed to music culture, but the Soho community of which we are also a part, and this passion felt so tied into our own,” Tommy tells us. Wonderhood Design hope to continue this community effort throughout the Soho area, working to bring more captivating design to the neighbourhood.