The MXGPU identity: born ON stage

When Moullinex and GPU Panic began merging their identities, something more than a collaboration took shape, and it needed its own visual language. We asked The Royal Studio, João Castro’s studio in Porto, to build it.

The LOGO & ICON

They didn’t start from how music is usually branded. They started from our stage. We play in the round, at the centre of the crowd, and a laser above us draws a triangle around the two of us. That triangle became the MXGPU symbol.

“On the digital elements this shape is enforced by the usage of angular shapes and vertical tension that is spawned by the centre of both the composition or the central element of the logo,” Castro explains. “It is the unity and focal point for MXGPU as the origin.”

Type for strobes

The typeface is ES Klarheit by Extraset, chosen because it holds up everywhere we appear: a record sleeve, the visuals behind us on stage, a thumbnail on a streaming app. Our shows are lit by strobes, lasers and light leaks, and the type has to survive them. The system works at a very large scale “while maintaining precise, sharp and electric text that communicates with minimal hesitation.”

Poetry in glitch

Electronic music has a default look, and Castro steered away from it on purpose. “We deliberately avoided being abstract, liquid, technological, glitchy or post-real,” he says. Instead, the studio worked with what he calls poetry: generating non-linear meanings from conventional structures, without committing to fixed forms. The identity reveals us slowly, “a presence that begins with mystery and gradually flows into reveal.”

Sudden Light on vinyl

The clearest place to see it all is the Sudden Light vinyl, made with Grama Pressing. The record combines matte and transparent vinyl in a single pressing. The symbol sits on the label and spreads across the red inner sleeve, and the insert carries the lyrics in the same sharp type.

“The world unfolds as a consequence,” Castro reflects, “and there is nothing more rewarding than making a crowd dance, both in the venue and in their homes.”

The Brand Identity covered the project in November 2025. Read the full piece.

The Sudden Light vinyl is in the Collection.

Credits

Visual identity and art direction: The Royal Studio (João Castro)

Typeface: ES Klarheit by Extraset

Vinyl pressing: Grama Pressing

Photography: Ana Viotti and João Castro