Aesthetically captivating, smoothly built. A clean digital club experience

Radio Radio is a boutique club located in Amsterdam's Westerpark - a unique combination of a radio station and nightclub together. Julius Simon - independent designer - and Tim van Wolfswinkel - creative frontend developer, created Radio Radio's aesthetic, smooth and refined website to communicate the club's programme for the weekend, and broadcast their radio streams during the week. As well as a platform to showcase their RRFM, resident DJs and a neatly organised radio archive. Highlighting the main visual object in the club: Radio Radio's bright luminous moon.

Our Dutch Digital Design curators love it:

All the details are great! We love the site. Impressed by how consistent and crafted everything is while maintaining a minimal aesthetic. This creates a very clear and delightful experience. The minimalism allows all the micro-interactions to stand out. Really nice work!

The story behind the luminous moon

During the COVID pandemic, light artist Boris Acket was asked to create a light inside the DJ booth. Radio Radio wanted to start streaming DJ sets, but most DJ booths look very similar and a little boring. Therefore, in order to create a captivating DJ livestream, Boris - together with Lumus Instruments - a Dutch studio for immersive light and sound installations, created this lamp: not inside the booth, but behind the DJ. The REC Light was born: a nod to the recording button. 

There is only lighting in the circumference. With a dark light diffuser panel on top that guides the colours to make the gradients. The 600+ LEDs are customisable and create an amazing hypnotising dance floor. It also helps create a wonderful silhouetted radio stream. 

The design rationale

When starting the digital design process, the first thing that came to mind was to use the recognisable 'REC light'. It is the focal point when entering the club. Everything revolves around this area. So, it was only natural to incorporate it into the site. At the time, Julius was experimenting with Spline - a no code 3D design tool, and began exploring different ways to create a 3D version of the iconic light. The result is a captivating and minimal website, designed to let the artists shine while capturing the essence of the Radio Radio club atmosphere.

The digital technologies

Julius and Tim wanted to create a website that is not only visually attractive and representing what the club stands for, but they also wanted it to be a rich and smooth environment for the user. That’s why they added seamless (page) transitions that enhance the overall experience. 

For adding show archives, the extensive resident overview and livestreams, they used Dato CMS - a headless content management system - for all content, so the Radio Radio team can add shows to the archive. They are archived based on genre tags which the user can filter whilst visiting the archive. 

They also wanted a custom audio player where they had full control over the layout and functionality. For that reason they added a SoundCloud API integration. The audio and video player - Twitch, an interactive livestreaming service - or a custom streaming URL, are root components. This means they stay visible while navigating through the website, giving the user a more seamless experience.

The residents overview consists of both radio show residents and club residents. The website shows separate lists that the user can navigate through. While navigating an individual resident's page, there is always the possibility to navigate to the next one - for a continuous, smooth user experience.

This beautiful, minimalistic Radio Radio website has been well received by the Radio Radio community, and has also been awarded Awwwards Site of the Day.