29: Deploying Our New Typeface: Spotify Mix

Last year Spotify launched a big update to the app: a new typeface. 

For most of us, changing fonts is easy. It’s just a dropdown menu away. But creating a whole new typeface and then rolling it out across 45 unique platforms, and over 2,000 types of devices spread across 200 brands – that’s not so simple. 

This brand new font is called Spotify Mix and it was made just for Spotify. From playlists to microsites and billboards, it’s what you’ll see everywhere you see Spotify, representing the brand’s distinctive voice. 

In this episode, we’ll get into the technical and aesthetic challenges that go into creating and deploying a new typeface as well as what made its release possible: Spotify’s internal design system, known as Encore. 

Host and principal engineer Dave Zolotusky speaks with two people on Spotify’s design platform team who helped bring Spotify Mix to the world: an iOS engineer and “Spotify’s one and only typographer” — a designer who specializes in type and fonts.

Learn more about Spotify Mix and our internal design system, Encore:

• Introducing Spotify Mix, Our New and Exclusive Font — Spotify
• Creating coherence: How Spotify’s design system goes beyond platforms — Figma
• Design Systems Podcast, Ep. 84: Digital typography: Suggesting, not dictating

Read what else we’re nerding out about on the Spotify Engineering Blog: engineering.atspotify.com

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