Grain

Grain makes audio tools for producers. The company was started in Lyon by two producers, and sells three plugins online: Slice, Verb and Lab.

The brief: turn a set of good tools into a real brand, and make the three plugins look like one family, from the plugin window to the street.

Audio software tends to look the same: grey panels, synth-style names, purple neons. Grain's own look dated from its first plugin, and users said it plainly: Grain makes tools, not a brand.

The challenge: stand out in a crowded, very technical market, and speak to producers who work alone in their bedroom and have no time for jargon or 40-minute tutorials.

Defend what other tools clean away: texture. A track that's too clean sounds like everyone else's, so the whole brand is built around keeping the grain.

Each tool gets a one-line promise instead of a spec sheet. One sample, three tracks. Three knobs, one warm room. One wave, broken into grains. The tone stays direct, like a producer showing you their screen.

The wordmark is heavy and tight, with a long cut tail on the g, like a cable plugged in. It works alone, with no symbol, and carries a ™ like a piece of gear.

Colour comes from grained gradients, from violet to orange, as if the sound were warming up. Each tool has its own tone: cobalt blue for Slice, orange for Verb, magenta for Lab.

The interfaces borrow from old analogue machines: black screens, waveforms, tape reels, real knobs. Modern tools that still feel like an instrument.

One wordmark, one texture and three tools that finally belong together, from the plugin window to a wall in the city.

Grain now has a voice producers can spot in a second: a grained gradient, a black screen, and a line that sounds like them.