Apple Music makes waves with new identity built by sound

Apple Music has given its brand identity a new beat, turning sound itself into the building blocks of how the music streaming service looks, moves and sounds.

Developed with TBWA\Media Arts Lab, the refreshed identity is built around the idea "made by sound" and introduces a new visual and audio language, including a logo mnemonic created using physical vibrations generated by music.

Rather than designing the visuals first, the team set out to let sound determine their form. Frequencies were played through a transducer, a device that converts audio signals into physical vibrations, which was placed in a shallow bath of mineral oil.

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The resulting waves, ripples and refractions were then captured on camera and used to develop the identity, effectively turning the movement created by music into a visual system.

A companion film documents the journey from the original musical composition to the finished identity, capturing the experimentation and craft behind translating sound into physical movement and, eventually, the new brand system.

To develop the sound behind the new identity, Apple Music and TBWA\Media Arts Lab partnered music producer Fred again.. and his collaborator NEST Acoustics. The pair broke down individual notes to create the final mnemonic, which was subsequently used to generate the accompanying visuals.

The approach also draws on Apple's Liquid Glass design language, combining the movement of sound waves with glass-like optical qualities. Those waves and vibrations form part of a broader visual language that extends across the Apple Music identity.

A new expressive musical note icon similarly takes its shape from the movement and refractions captured during the process, carrying elements of the physical experiment into the wider brand system.

Apple Music's refreshed wordmark, meanwhile, pairs the Apple symbol with a custom version of SF Pro, Apple's typeface. Bold, lowercase letterforms have been introduced to give the identity a more individual expression while maintaining its connection to Apple's wider design system.

According to the team, translating the composition into a visual identity took months of experimentation and collaboration, with the finished mark intended to act as a physical record of the music rather than an illustration of sound.

The identity is designed to span Apple Music's marketing, product and experiences, while giving the service its own recognisable audio language.

Apple Music had previously teased the new wordmark in September as part of marketing for Apple Music Hall, its new live music venue in London. The wider design will begin appearing across Apple Music's original content and event programming this week.

The latest work follows another Apple campaign earlier this year that put music and sound at the heart of its creative. The tech giant tapped global football star Vinícius Júnior for "Dança", a 30-second film promoting the noise-cancelling capabilities of its AirPods Pro 3.

The film followed Vini Jr. dancing through a series of noisy urban environments, but notably kept the music playing through his AirPods unheard by viewers. Instead, surrounding sounds were amplified as he danced through the distractions, using the contrast between music and environmental noise to demonstrate the earbuds' Active Noise Cancellation technology.

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