Making the Brand: Redesigning Spotify Design

In this two-part article, we’ll provide the scoop on our collaborative mission to degree up our Spotify Design model. We’ll clarify what we did and why we did it, plus inform you what we realized about wrangling stakeholders and embracing shade within the age of darkish themes. This first installment will cowl the rebrand of Spotify Design. Its companion piece (coming quickly!) will present how we utilized the brand new model to this vivid and glossy web site that you just’re at the moment taking a look at.

A tough have a look at the previous model

In 2018 and 2019, Spotify started to play a stronger function within the world design neighborhood. We began growing a model for our self-discipline via an exterior web site, social media (Twitter and Instagram), and cool occasions. Then in September of final 12 months, we stood again, took a tough have a look at what we’d completed, and realized we’d missed a chance.

We noticed that designers had been pushing our Spotify Design model system to the breaking level. Assets for shows, social media, and in-person happenings had been being created by completely different groups, and the interpretation of our design pointers was a bit, um, how can we put this? A bit relaxed. We might see that our designers craved a extra versatile, playful system that will permit them to inform tales, discover huge concepts, and energize our neighborhood.

So, we began contemporary. We tackled the brand new model utilizing our product design course of — a.ok.a. assume it, construct it, ship it, tweak it — to offer ourselves some construction and share our progress with designers in their very own language.

More emotional mojo

Before leaping into fix-it mode, we needed to outline our drawback and work out who’d assist us resolve it. For the preliminary design exploration, we partnered with unbiased artwork director Albin Holmqvist, who’d simply accomplished a daring model refresh for one among our favorite flagship playlists, Altar. 

Because we’d labored with Albin to convey some emotional mojo to one among our beloved editorial locations, our workforce trusted him to create a model that will be bolder — dare we are saying louder — that we’d be proud to signify us. 

A refrain of voices

It was throughout preliminary analysis periods with our design workforce that we first encountered the paradox of designing for designers. Because whereas designers are likely to have balanced views, supernatural empathy, and scarily spot-on hunches, in addition they have tons of opinions! 

Respecting particular person viewpoints is extraordinarily necessary to us due to our numerous and multi-disciplinary neighborhood, and we needed all our designers to really feel possession over the brand new model. 

But we additionally needed a powerful path. And a diluted, design-by-committee, trying-to-please-everyone-but-actually-pleasing-no-one model was #1 on our “How do we know if we’ve blown it?” record of hazards. We additionally needed to stick to pointers from our Brand & Creative workforce, to assist us guarantee our model could be recognizable as a part of the Spotify household whereas nonetheless representing our design identification — one which’s enjoyable, curious, and vibrant.

New DNA takes form

Saturated with views, viewpoints, and (ahem) opinions, Albin began exploring. We requested him to bear in mind the next model attributes, as decided by our workforce:

• ADAPTABLE

• DIVERSE

• QUALITY DRIVEN

• WARM & FRIENDLY

• HUMAN CENTERED

Bright hues rapidly grew to become a central theme within the discovery course of. We needed to keep away from the impartial, muted colours and with darkish design themes so intently related to Spotify, we hoped to ship one thing extra sudden. Albin’s expertise as an editorial artwork director made him courageous with shade:

He introduced concepts that used a wide range of sturdy, extensible parts, and we gravitated most towards those that added an analog vibe to our primarily digital expertise. In the examples under you may see our model’s new DNA  — bursts, motion strains, and hand-drawn highlights — beginning to take form. Those accents exuded the character we had been in search of, and had been refined and carried over to the ultimate design system.

Photography-wise, we needed to get rid of stoic, “I am a very serious designer” headshots. By combining shade images with vivid backgrounds and the enjoyable highlights, we had been higher in a position to seize who we’re as people. 

In search of unity

Our objective was to unify Spotify Design with the Spotify model at massive, whereas sustaining the avant-garde method we beloved in Albin’s early explorations. We had been experimenting with a lesser used model of Spotify’s customary typeface, however we couldn’t make the model really feel sufficiently Spotify with out our trusty Spotify Circular Book. 

We initially thought we’d differentiate Spotify Design via typography, however we made so many different modifications {that a} font refresh was pointless. We needed the general impact to be “Spotify Design got a glow up!” versus “Wait, what brand is this?”

Passing the swag take a look at

Next up, we began by making use of the model to various things to make it really feel actual. How would possibly the model behave on old-school printed-out posters? How about in new-school animated GIFs? We might write a complete article in regards to the science of making use of your model to mock-ups of water bottles and sweatshirts. But let’s go away it at this: One of the truest methods to guage employer branding is by asking designers, “Hey, would you wear this swag?” 

Solidify and have fun

We then gathered suggestions from our design leaders and model guardians. And with approval on the horizon, we dove into iteration mode. After a number of extra rounds of evaluation, we’d completed it: Spotify Design was rebranded!

To solidify and have fun our choices, we made a model guide and cranked out some sensible belongings. Because a model is nothing and not using a slick Google Slides template! We additionally started a communications plan to let our designers know in regards to the modifications we made and easy methods to discover the instruments to place the brand new model into motion. 

Play it your personal manner

We see our new model as a unifying start line, not an entire toolkit of immovable belongings. Why? Because we all know designers prefer to play. We invited them to take action by creating their very own model DNA to be added to our asset library. We additionally kicked off a swag competitors, promising that the successful piece of scorching design fireplace could be produced. Check out a number of the swaggiest concepts under:

The journey continues…

So we had a brand new model, and we thought it regarded very nice in a wide range of locations. But there was one particularly necessary place that wanted our consideration: the Spotify.Design web site. Tune in for the second half of our rebrand journey, the place we discuss how our newly minted model impressed the creation of the web webzone you’re at the moment beholding.