Spotify released its own font, the company was announced on Wednesday. The music streaming service hopes its new font, “Spotify Mix,” will help Spotify distinguish its own unique visual identity.
Spotify Mix is a sans-serif typeface designed in collaboration with Dinamo Typefaces, a Berlin-based type design studio that has worked with major companies including Burberry, Discord, Nike, Patreon and Tumblr, among others. Sans-serif fonts have a simpler look than serif fonts and are popular with many brands, including tech giants Google and Microsoft. The typeface is also known to be more accessible because it is easier to read on smaller devices.
Spotify describes the new typeface as a “combination of sharp angles and smooth curves,” which gives it a “distinctive character,” Spotify’s global head of brand design, Rasmus Wängelin, wrote in a blog post.
“To design this typeface, we broke free from traditional typographic constraints and merged elements from a variety of font styles. This approach reflects the dynamic and evolving nature of audio culture over the years,” added Wängelin.
Spotify Mix replaces the current font used on the platform, Circular, which was created by Swiss designer Laurenz Brunner.
Spotify Mix serves as an example for startups that want to create a unique brand identity through the use of different font styles. While some may view a font change as minor, others believe it has a substantial impact on how a business is perceived. A font like Comic Sans — widely considered most disliked font because of its childish and simplistic nature — could provoke a strong, negative reaction from users, for example.
Many large companies have undergone font facelifts to give their brands their own form of visual expression. In 2021, Twitter/X introduced its proprietary font, Chirp, to give it more personality and improve readability of content for users. When Instagram underwent a visual refresh, it introduced a new font. Microsoft’s move away from Calibri as the default font in Office also made headlines. And years ago, when Google introduced its new design language, Material Design, it included an updated version of its system font, Roboto.
Spotify Mix is rolling out gradually starting today and will continue to roll out over the coming weeks. It’s currently only available for content written in “all languages with Latin scripts, as well as Vietnamese,” the company said.
