IXD103 – Brand Guidelines Research

Brand Guidelines – Spotify

Spotify is a digital music, podcast, and video service that gives you access to millions of songs and other content from creators all over the world. Basic functions such as playing music are totally free, but you can also choose to upgrade to Spotify Premium. It has tons of great music, exclusive tunes, and podcasts, all of which combine to make it a top pick for streaming music and more pop culture-related content.

Upgrading Spotify’s ‘dreary broccoli’ green logo to a neon green wasn’t enough to appeal to the visual-loving millennials using its service. Working with Collins in 2015, Spotify took a bold turn in the direction of vibrant duotone colours, photography and contemporary shapes. This statement transformation brought Spotify to life and made the brand instantly identifiable, giving it a look that reflected the way music feels

Logotypes:

Primary:

Spotify signify their presence as a brand through their primary logotype, allowing consumer to identify the company brand visually. They use this primary logotype when signing off all of their communications and their partner messages to ensure their brand is at the forefront of the consumers mind. Spotify are clever in their approach as they prioritize clear space in order to preserve the integrity of the primary logotype. They use a minimum clear space of around 1/3 of the width of the logotype, making sure that no other type or graphical elements infringe the logotypes space.

Minimum print size 0.4 inch (10 mm) wide.

Minimum digital size 45 pixels wide

Horizontal:

Spotify also has the option of using their horizontal logotype as another good way to show off the Spotify brand. The minimum clearspace to the around the logotype is equivalent to 1/2 of the height of the logotype. The minimum size the horizontal logotype may be used for print applications is 15mm wide and for digital applications it is 80 pixels wide.

Horizontal Logotype

Monochromatic:

 Spotify also use their monochromatic logotype very effectively when creating designs that are not suitable with colour or there aren’t enough colours to properly reproduce the primary logotype. With an effective use of clear space equivalent to 1/3 of the width of the logotype. Their monochromatic primary logotype should never be smaller than 10mm wide and should include the registration mark. Horizontal Logotype should never be smaller than 15mm wide.

Logotype Don’t’s:

 To make sure their logotype appears as consistently as possible throughout their communications Spotify has a few ways they don’t want their logotype to appear;

• Don’t separate icon from the word mark, they should be treated as a whole
• Only use specified colours to represent the logotype
• Avoid stylizing the logotype with outlines, glow etc
• Don’t rotate or stretch the logotype
• Don’t use the logo against a green background

Colour:

 Spotify green is their main colour, and they use it to clearly signify the presence of Spotify in people’s lives, and to help their users immediately identify them. They use the colour generously for all of their type, charts and as a background. They use a select set of supporting neutral colours which help Spotify Green to ‘sing and shine’ and in the majority of uses, they want to create strong contrast between all of the colours used. For their designers the gradients are best applied in digital applications like our website and email.

Typography:

 The Spotify font logo is inspired by the Gotham Medium typeface. Some modifications have been added to the letter i in order to make it more unique. Gotham is a font that was created in 2000 by Tobias Frere Jones. The designer inspired himself from the architectural style that you can see in New York City.

All the widths have the same weights, and they are in both roman and italic. The Gotham font has visually consistent intervals in its weights. To make sure every style has a heavier counterpart a great idea was used. The same degree of emphasis was used. The Spotify font is a great example of how a brand can take advantage of its typography. Some similar options to the Spotify font that users can use in their own work include, Montserrsat, Vision, Raleway and Nexa.

Voice and Tone:

 In 2015 when Spotify went through their rebrand going in the direction of vibrant duotone colours, photography and contemporary shapes their brand became no longer solely focused on music but now it was about people, and this was shown in their 2018 goals campaign which helped set the brand and their new guidelines apart from their competitors. Their 2018 campaign, where users’ weird and wonderful listening data was anonymously published to the world.

This campaign did a great deal for Spotify as a brand, giving them a distinct, established personality with a tone of voice that was reflective of its target market. It was current and worked well across languages and locations, and it was representative of the personal service it offers. The campaign embodied the brands values and guidelines all in one showing innovation, collaboration, sincerity, passion and playfulness.