What music looks like. Apple Music unveils an identity made by sound

Мusic can conjure very specific images: a summer trip, a first date, a dance floor you can return to in your mind. The Apple Music team asked a more literal question: what does sound itself look like? The answer is Made by Sound, the service’s new visual identity, unveiled on October 21.

The project brought together agency TBWA\Media Arts Lab, British musician and producer Fred again.. and his creative collaborator NEST Acoustics. At its heart is an original composition that shaped both the brand’s sound and the character of its motion graphics. Apple Music documented the process in the film Made by Sound: Behind the new brand identity.

To create the visual effects, the team used a shallow bath of mineral oil. Individual notes from the composition were played through a device that converts an audio signal into physical vibrations. Waves formed on the surface, shifting the reflections and refractions of light. A camera recorded the movement, giving sound a visible form.

Months of experimentation went into the seemingly simple result. The sound had to be tuned to the material’s response so that the image remained expressive and recognisable. The filmed waves and optical distortions became the raw material for the new visual system. The same composition also became Apple Music’s short sonic signature.

The most compelling part of the project is the chance to trace the journey from a note to an image. Usually, we see a finished mark and can only guess why it has taken a particular form. Here, the process becomes part of getting to know the brand: we can watch sound set a material in motion and light make that movement visible.

For a music service, it is a particularly fitting story. On screen is something every listener knows: the feeling that music can change the space around us. This time, that change is something we can see.