Few have as much patience as the high-quality music lovers who still use Spotify. The company promised high-definition audio would come to Spotify more than three years ago, and we’re still waiting. Although rumors indicate that Spotify Hifi is on the way, it is worth remembering that this is not the first time it has been leaked in the last three years.
While most alternatives to Spotify have already adopted high definition as a core feature of the service, the company led by Daniel Ek is still considering how to charge for it, possibly with a new “Supremium” subscription; In the meantime, he prefers to spend his time on features like a “Music Oracle” that uses minds to recommend music, or an AI-based DJ that can’t be used in most countries.
The latest Spotify news that no one asked for is a new font
The intention of Spotify’s head of brand design, Rasmus Wängelin, was to achieve “variable typography”, capable of adapt to all musical styles offered by the application. Therefore, the designers broke away from traditional design and created, basically, a “remix”, or a remix of elements from different lyrical styles, which mimics the “dynamic and evolving nature of musical culture”.
This is how Spotify Mix was born, a name that seems to come from a new feature of the app, but is actually a “sans serif” font that becomes the new identity of the service. The new font will be used across mobile and desktop apps, unifying the style into a single experience. Additionally, Spotify will use typography to generate playlist covers as well as in promotional campaigns.
The great advantage of being a “variable font” is that characters can be changed in different ways, such as height, width or thickness, all from the same file; that opens the door to many design possibilitiessince the application will be able to display letters of different styles from the same file.
As long as we like the design, it’s a very interesting launch; although it’s worth asking whether it’s as important as the company makes it out to be. It’s also strange that this font wasn’t announced alongside an app overhaul, which is also rumored to be coming soon. The optimistic view is that the company could do a gradual launch of all the new features over the next few weeks.
