Global Soundtracking Platform Epidemic Sound Unveils New Brand

Epidemic Sound, the soundtracking platform for content creation, has today unveiled their new brand identity. The new design, which evolves the Epidemic Sound brand to represent its most bold and vibrant qualities, was created in partnership with Bold Scandinavia / NoA - 2021’s European Design Company of the Year at LIA (London International Awards). 

From innovative disruptor to leading soundtracking platform for brands and creators 

Since its creation in 2009, Epidemic Sound has grown to become the leading soundtracking platform for brands and creators. With YouTube and TikTok videos including Epidemic Sound tracks garnering 2.5 billion daily views, 2023 saw the company’s music soundtrack more content than ever before, from documentaries to TV-series, podcasts, advertising commercials, and social media content. In the past year, the company signed world-renowned artists such as Jordin Sparks, while continuing to release quality music across a wide variety of genres such as Classical, Hip-Hop, K-POP, and more. The company also launched next-generation, AI-powered soundtracking tools such as Soundmatch to accelerate its journey toward frictionless soundtracking. 

After significant investments in its platform and improved soundtracking services, perfecting its role in the creative process, Epidemic Sound is ready to once again reinvent the category it once started. A bolder, more expressive brand identity was needed to truly reflect Epidemic Sound’s role and future in the creative community. 

Designing “that feeling when sound creates magic” 

During their (on-going) close collaboration with the Brand, Marketing and Product teams at Epidemic Sound, Bold has created a both meaningful and impactful design system and philosophy to bring Epidemic Sound’s stubbornly creative approach to life across all of its platform. 

“To support the transition to becoming a soundtracking platform, we focused our strategy around unlocking the actual cultural value of Epidemic Sound to its audiences through design”, said Anders Örtegren - brand strategist at Bold Scandinavia. 

Creating a brand for the global cultural workforce - from broadcasters, agencies, and brands of all sizes to content creators, artists, and composers - Bold Scandinavia took inspiration from the everyday context they all have in common; the soundtracking/editing interface. 

Building on the “stacks” or “tracks” from said interface, it was easy to develop a design system and philosophy enabling and showcasing all the fun, vibrant and fantastic stuff the Epidemic Sound platform enables creators to make.

“Something that definitely guided the work was an observation from the initial research about the stirring emotionality of sound — leading us to balance the comparatively-rational design system with a highly expressive collage-style visual language. The resulting imagery features an eclectic clash of everything from vintage 1800s illustrations to modern 3D renders, and acts as a metaphor for the boundless creativity that is possible with Epidemic Sound.” said Sidney Lim, design director at Bold Scandinavia. 

Extra interesting was the approach to creating a distinct audio ID. How do you create something distinct and memorable audiowise for a company that specialises in music and sound? You create a special rhythmic sequence populated with music produced by Epidemic Sound’s artists. 

“Taking a piece of existing sound and arranging it in a rhythmic pattern following the songs BPM, we can ensure that we are always in key and on time regardless of the tempo, key and genre of the track. Instead of relying on a conventional brand jingle, this flexible approach focuses on creating a uniquely Epidemic Sound framework that complements its creators’ content, whilst constantly feeling fresh and unexpected to audiences.” said Joar Lenz, audio creative lead at Bold Scandinavia.

A more in depth presentation on the new identity can be found here.

Commenting on the rebrand and the collaboration with Bold Scandinavia, global brand director at Epidemic Sound, Rob Bullough, said, “We are incredibly excited to unveil our refreshed brand identity, showcasing the very best of Epidemic Sound with the clearest signal possible. This is not a pivot; it is a loud celebration of everything which makes us unique, putting our company's strengths front and centre. This refresh is all about letting the pride we have in our artists, our team, and our technology shine through. A massive shoutout to our partners at Bold for their extraordinary dedication, creativity and precision – this has been the most rewarding, humbling, and constructive collaboration I've ever experienced with an agency.”