Tag: design

Interior Design Expert Bobby Berk Shares Top Tips for Making Your Living Room an Audio Oasis

November 16, 2023

a graphic illustration showing two people listening to spotify on television.

As the weather outside becomes more frightful, it’s time to make your living room delightful. So cozy up your home’s vibes by allowing your favorite music or podcasts to filter through the living room. From countless brands of smart speakers to easier-than-ever TV listening, it’s seamless to connect and enjoy audio with congregating family and friends. 

Bobby Berk knows a thing or two about cultivating the perfect ambience for a living room. The interior design expert and author is well-known for his stylish and youthful designs and has been one of the “Fab Five” on Netflix’s popular makeover show Queer Eye. This makes Bobby the perfect person for Spotify to partner with to show fans how audio and home design go hand in hand. And while your home decor aesthetic is as unique as your music taste, a few extra tips can go a long way in creating the perfect space for yourself.

For the Record sat down with Bobby to understand more about designing a welcoming living room space, as well as what you’ll find on his perfect music playlist for home entertaining.

What’s the historical function and significance of the living room?

From its beginnings in the late 19th century, the living room was a more formal space in the home used primarily for entertaining guests. It consisted mainly of more-tailored seating and a layout built around conversation. It wasn’t until the mid-20th century that the living room became a more casual space for spending time with family, relaxing, listening to music, or watching TV. The design itself was also adapted to be more about comfort and a sense of coziness.

What are your top three tips for designing a welcoming, comfortable, and functional living room?

First, add seating that looks—and most importantly feels—good. Next, create a layout that encourages connection but is also open. Place your furniture in a natural, conversational grouping. You also want the layout to feel welcoming, so be sure to leave space to enter the room and move through it easily. Finally, bring in soft and cozy materials. Adding pillows, throws, and a soft rug underfoot will create a comfortable living room that you really want to spend time in.

What do you like to listen to when designing and working? How about for hosting?

If I really need to get focused and get things done, I prefer a chill instrumental mix like Focus Flow or Workday Lounge. When designing, I’ll listen to something more upbeat, a pop mix or one of my favorite artists, Rozzi.

My ideal hosting playlist would take you on a journey starting with smooth jazz and a cocktail lounge vibe. Then I would move into some pop classics and top 40 hits, get things a bit more energized, and then finish things off with more relaxed, ambient tunes.

How do acoustics, sound, and entertainment fit into your living room concepts?

I’m always thinking about how someone will use a space when designing, and that definitely includes entertainment and sound. You don’t want a living room to be an echo chamber, so I bring in materials like a rug, upholstery, and curtains to soften things and improve acoustics.

What’s your go-to smart speaker?

I have a number of Sonos speakers throughout my home, and I love that I can easily connect Spotify to just one speaker—like, if I want to sing in the shower, the portable speaker if I’m outdoors, or the whole house if I’m entertaining.

Spotify’s daylist provides you with a custom playlist multiple times per day depending on what you listen to around the clock. What are you loving about the feature so far?

My mood definitely changes throughout the day, so it’s nice to have a playlist that changes along with it! In the morning, I have a mix that gets me motivated and focused for the day, a high-energy workout mix for the afternoon, and something a bit more chill for unwinding at the end of the day.

Whether it’s a Feel Good Morning Niche Mix for those who love a fresh, light, and airy aesthetic or a warm pumpkin spice evening daylist for those channeling a cozy winter atmosphere on the couch, Spotify’s personalized playlists can help you feel right at home.

Global Head of Brand Design Rasmus Wangelin Explains the Creative Behind Spotify 2021 Wrapped

December 1, 2021

Spotify Wrapped: You eagerly anticipate its arrival. You swoon over the in-app experience. You share your results on your socials. You snicker when you see the ads during your commute. But do you know what goes into Wrapped’s unique visual identity each year?

Many months ahead of Wrapped’s December launch, Spotify’s Brand & Creative team comes together to refresh Wrapped as a true campaign and experience that reflects on the year with its own unique look and feel. To get the scoop, For the Record spoke with Spotify’s Global Head of Brand Design Rasmus Wangelin. He shared the considerations he and his team put into Wrapped year after year—and what’s special about the creative for 2021.  

What is your role within the Spotify Brand & Creative team? How does your work throughout the year transition into Wrapped?

In collaboration with my team, I oversee Spotify’s design work for brand and marketing globally. I run a team of between 15 and 20 designers, art directors, and design directors working alongside me across different initiatives. They can range from brand marketing, music and podcast marketing, art direction and branding, design thought leadership, and problem solving any design-related issues for the company as a whole. We really work and collaborate with almost all parts of Spotify. We’re also always proactively working in the background on the brand itself—the rules around it, guidelines, how it comes to life.

Wrapped is probably the biggest project we do every year. And it’s not like other projects end—but because we know Wrapped is coming, we have to orchestrate and organize our team to be able to support it properly, alongside everything else that we still have going on. 

And funny enough, design explorations for Wrapped actually start in June every year. We have to start that early in order to land the design direction so that we can then build an extensive tool kit that will be used by all of our partners and agencies globally.

What are some of the considerations that go into the Wrapped visual identity each year? 

I think there are a few different answers here. I think the most important one is that the way we tell the story of music and audio culture every year shifts, right? So we actually want to look at the year that has been and align our way of talking and our ideas with the year. As you can see, every year has a slightly different theme. And it’s important for us on the design front to make sure that whatever design we create matches the sentiment of the way we’re talking about the year conceptually. 

And then outside of that, we actually aspire to create a completely new and fresh articulation of our brand every year. That is Spotify. We’re always inventing, trying things, and exploring how we can push the brand. So when you go through the years and you start backtracking on Twitter and Instagram and all these different places that you can post, you can almost visually see what year you’re talking about based on the art direction.

Of course we’re always thinking about all the obvious things like accessibility and creating a design that feels inclusive enough for everyone to understand it. We work closely with a lot of different teams at Spotify, and we bring them in as stakeholders to make sure that we get feedback from different places with different expertise really early in the process. We’re a digital-first company, so we are always thinking about how we can create impactful work across all of our digital touchpoints. So, for example, motion is always a key part of our design. 

What are some of the specific elements within the identity for 2021 Wrapped? What should fans look forward to? 

The graphic element this year for Wrapped is a dynamic thread that ties together all the work. When we started looking at this as a design element, we were super excited because it gives us an additional layer of storytelling in every piece of creative. You can, let’s say, have an artist image with copy, but you can also have things inside of this ribbon to enhance the story and go deeper with an insight. 

Sometimes we will put words like “2021” or “Wrapped,” but it also gives us an opportunity to actually lean in even further and have a bit of a dialog with our audience. We’ve created a set of standard symbols, like a heart or a fire, but we’re also giving local markets an opportunity to create their own custom symbols. We had so much fun with this piece when creating the work and we love the idea that some symbols might only be fully understood by a true fan. We’re massive music fans ourselves. Everyone who works at Spotify is very in tune with music and music culture, and we want that passion to shine through. 

How does the 2021 Wrapped visual identity reflect 2021 as a whole?

This year, people around the world started to embrace the unknown in many ways, so we wanted every piece of creative to feel unique. At the same time, consistency is always important for a large campaign like Wrapped, and the playful ribbon does a good job at creating unique articulations while tying together the work as a whole.

 

This year, as you enjoy the new and familiar elements of the Wrapped in-app experience or explore what the world streamed most this year, make sure to take a look as well as a listen. 

Welcome to the Redesigned ‘For the Record’ Newsroom

November 10, 2021

Every day, those of us behind For the Record have the pleasure and privilege of covering all things Spotify. From our newest partnerships and playlists to data deep dives, our work serves to highlight how Spotify acts as a mirror, megaphone, and incubator for culture. We connect you, our readers, with countless creators, artists, and podcasters, as well as our own employees, and we always seek to do it in the best way possible. Above all, we believe in the power and importance of being able to tell the story of our company—including our products, passions, and people—in our own words.

All this is why we’re so excited to reveal our redesign, which ushers in the next chapter of For the Record.

Spotify has an engaged following spanning geographies, generations, and interests, and For the Record is the same. You may be a fan or creator, or follow us from the financial and business communities. On For the Record, there’s something here for each of you—and we know that each time we update our communications channels, we better equip ourselves to speak to our audience directly, in the way that is most impactful to them. 

So in addition to a sleeker and more dynamic, interactive design overall, here are a few of the new elements For the Record readers can look forward to:

1. More ways to easily find the stories you’re curious about

Visitors who come to our newsroom may do so to learn how to make a collaborative playlist, read the latest interview with their favorite EQUAL artist, or find our most recent earnings statement. If that’s what you’re looking for, you’ll still find it here on the home page—as well as more directly in the reorganized “News” section of our site. Head straight to the news section you’re searching for—whether that’s “What’s New” or “Culture and Trends”—or hit “shuffle” to see the latest across all categories.

2. Every episode from our three company news podcasts in one place

We recently expanded Spotify: For the Record from one company podcast to three that are better tailored to our audiences. And now, you can find each episode of Spotify: For the Record, Spotify: Mic Check, and Spotify: Discover This within the newsroom itself. Find all of them listed in the header navigation under “Podcasts.”

3. A jumping-off point into resources from across Spotify

We know that our visitors may be artists, podcasters, or advertisers looking for information that’s more meaningful to them. So our brand new Spotlight and Spotify Communities sections on the For the Record home page better caters to our visitors, no matter who they are. These new, dynamic sections allow us to showcase the incredible work happening across the business and ensure that creators, fans, and partners are directed to the resources best suited for them—perhaps even by playing the latest company podcast episode right in the browser. What’s more, For the Record’s dynamic integration with the Spotify app and Spotify Greenroom also helps send visitors exactly where they want to go.

Here’s what hasn’t changed: You’ll continue to find breaking Spotify news, exclusive company insights, and stories of all the innovation in audio taking place within our company every day. 

Millions of people around the world—including fans, creators, prospective employees, partners, advertisers, and more—turn to Spotify for an always-on, tuned-in experience. As you explore the redesigned For the Record, you’ll find the same. Enjoy!