The Mlink Tool is chocker with simple features, such as randomising colours and shapes, affecting the speed of animations, creating shuddering rows of columns or melting blobs. It’s all got this really endearing early MS Paint feeling to it, with simple gradients and mischievous geometry. It’s like if the shape tool had an acid trip. Apart from creating visualisers, the generated animations could also be used for posters or postmodern fine art, however you choose to use it. It makes approaching the music label inviting to not just the artists but the listeners too, who can create visuals for their own listening experiences.
But the designer duo behind the project aren’t concerned about making the tool bigger or adding any more features, it’s perfectly fine the way it is. If anything, it’s a bit of a throwback to fun, light websites that aren’t monetised or hide premium features behind a paywall, it’s just about pushing into interactive territories, and giving musicians visual freedom. “For us, creative coding isn’t a finishing layer on top of design. It’s a way of working where logic, structure and behaviour are themselves the design,” says Iris. “The question isn’t how to automate creativity, but how to build systems that keep authorship and collaboration alive.”