The Epidemic Sound logo: A beacon of high-quality audio
For music lovers worldwide, the Epidemic Sound logo is more than just a brand symbol; it’s a beacon of creativity, innovation, and quality. Since first launching in 2009, the Epidemic Sound company has refined and enhanced its logo a handful of times, experimenting with new styles. How much do you know about Epidemic Sound logo history?
Like many audio streaming and music companies, the Epidemic Sound brand has spent years cultivating the ideal visual identity, to separate itself from the competition.
Playing with different color palettes and font choices, Epidemic Sound has been able to effectively strengthen its presence in a cluttered landscape, and capture the attention of endless customers.
The most recent Epidemic Sound logo, created in the year 2020, was created in collaboration with a professional design agency, Kurppa Hosk, and aims to convey the key values of the company.
Today, we’re going to take you on a journey through Epidemic Sound logo history, and discover what makes the brand’s simple emblem so compelling.
What is Epidemic Sound known for?
Initially created in 2009 by a team of five founders, Epidemic Sound is a global royalty-free soundtrack company, based in Sweden. Unlike other well-known music streaming services, Epidemic Sound focuses on empowering content creators and artists with access to free, accessible music.
The Epidemic Sound website provides access to a library of more than 90,000 sound effects, intended for use in games, applications, television shows and films. It also offers a collection of more than 35,000 soundtracks, which can be purchased for use with all of the necessary licensing included.
Epidemic Sound built its business as a ways for creators, from multinational corporations to YouTube streamers to access compelling audio assets.
All tracks available on the website come in “stems”, which permit users to remove certain layers and customize the audio, adjusting bass, drums, and melody components.
Epidemic Sound also licenses its music to public spaces such as restaurants, shopping malls, car parks, and hotels that don’t want to pay for well-known tracks.
The unique content on the Epidemic Sound website is produced by a selection of music creators, who receive upfront payment for each track, as well as half of the audio’s streaming revenue. The company also partners with various other brands, including Canva, Pinterest, Adobe, and iStock.
Epidemic Sound logo history: The evolution of the emblem
Compared to other music companies, Epidemic Sound is a relatively new organization, introduced to the market for the first time in 2009. However, since then, the company has made a number of significant changes to its visual identity.
Let’s take a closer look at the Epidemic Sound logo history throughout the years.
2009
When Epidemic Sound first launched on June 18th, 2009, it used a relatively simple but impactful wordmark as its primary logo. The name of the company “Epidemic Sound” appeared spread across two levels, with a “TM” copyright mark in the top-right corner.
Like many future-focused companies of the time, Epidemic Sound chose to create its inscription in all uppercase letters, selecting a bold sans-serif typeface to demonstrate strength and confidence.
To add to the dynamism of the logo, the company replaced the two “I’s” in “Epidemic” with exclamation marks, highlighted in a bright shade of red.
2013
In 2013, Epidemic Sound updated its image, choosing a new wordmark that would remain with the company for the next 7 years. The newly formed inscription was very different from the previous design, featuring an elegant script-style font, in sentence case.
This emblem has an almost retro appeal to it, with an unusually styled “E” at the beginning of the word, featuring deep curves.
The vertical line of the letter “d” has is enhanced with a swooping flourish, which seems to balance well with the line underneath the word “Epidemic”. This underline also connects with the word “Sound”, which is presented in a smaller, but equally decorative cursive font.
This Epidemic Sound emblem switched the black and red color palette for an exclusively red image, demonstrating passion, creativity, and power.
2020
The most recent emblem created by Epidemic Sound was produced in collaboration with the Kurppa Hosk design agency in 2020. According to the soundtrack company, the emblem was created with a focus on three pillars: boldness, universal appeal, and simplicity.
Two variations of the design were introduced, one which features the full name of the company on a single line, alongside a geometric icon. The other version positions the two words in the company’s name across two levels.
In this variation, the icon accompanying the wordmark is larger and more pronounced. The minimalistic sans-serif font choice here works well with the unique icon, which looks a little like a sub-section from the lower-case letter “e”.
The organization altered its color palette again for this new design, switching from red to a simple white and black image.
The Epidemic Sound logo: Fonts and colors
Though the most recent version of the Epidemic Sound logo is quite different from the two designs that came before it, the brand has shared the inspiration behind its brand refresh. According to the company, the team wanted to create something eye-catching, memorable, universally recognizable.
Perhaps most importantly, the brand felt simplicity was key to its new logo design. After all, the company itself has earned popularity by transforming the complexity of accessing audio into something straightforward.
Today, the minimalistic and modern logo effectively conveys the organization’s core values and brand vision.
You can find some useful examples of the Epidemic Sound logo here:
What color is the Epidemic Sound logo?
Throughout the years, the Epidemic Sound logo colors have only gone through a handful of changes. Initially, the first emblem featured a combination of black and red, to convey passion and professionalism.
For a while, the brand shifted its color palette to showcase a red wordmark on a white background. Now, the Epidemic Sound logo color combination is simply black and white.
Most of the time, the company uses a black inscription on a white background. However, variations of the logo have been produced featuring an inverted color palette. This ensures the company’s image can work well on a variety of different backgrounds.
What font does the Epidemic Sound logo use?
The Epidemic Sound logo font started as a simple sans-serif inscription, with exclamation marks replacing the “I’s” in the company’s name. For almost a decade, the company switched to using a retro, script-style font, with deep swirls and flourishes.
When the company decided to transform its logo again in 2020, the team worked alongside its professional design agency to create a brand-new font, known as “Epidemic!”.
The clean and minimalistic sans-serif font is similar in many ways to other well-known typefaces such as Calibri, and Arial.
The evolving Epidemic Sound icon
Looking back at Epidemic Sound logo history, it’s easy to see how much the right combination of typography and color can influence a brand’s visual identity.
While the organization has always attempted to convey personality traits like passion and creativity, the most recent logo gives the company a more professional, modern vibe.
Today, the Epidemic Sound emblem is a symbol of simplicity, strength, and reliability. It aims to convince creators around the world of the company’s commitment to helping them master the audio landscape, and overcome the complexities of managing music rights.
Fabrik: A branding agency for our times.
As Fabrik’s creative director, Stephen oversees complex branding programmes. He advises our clients on their tone of voice, creates logos and visual identities and crafts names for companies, products and services. Writing for Brand Fabrik Stephen reflects his love for logo design and visual identity.
