Author note: This is a review of the visual design. I’m aware there was an AI issue with 2024 Wrapped, but that’s entirely irelevant to this discussion.
A couple of years ago I wrote a design review of Spotify Wrapped 2021, which I think was a seriously low point in the campaign’s history. I compared everything they did wrong that year to the spectacular job they’d done in 2018, which I think was their peak year. I stand by everything I wrote at the time — the 2021 Wrapped was trash — but what matters now is the question: Has Spotify redeemed itself in 2024?
Without a doubt it has. In fact, they must have read my blog because even 2022 marked a rebound from their disastrous 2021 effort. 2022 was all about animation and you could be excused for thinking that it might even have been too much animation. 2023 built on that a bit more but 2024 was very interesting and different. Rather than extreme visual fry, 2024 featured just a few design tactics in combination to make a simple, but fresh experience.
The thing that I’ve always liked about Spotify Wrapped is that they built a visual experience on audio data. When virtually all music culture is now online there’s very little left of the tactile, visual experience of opening an album and appreciating the art that went with the music. That’s become a completely niche thing, but Wrapped has brought it back by giving us all a visual design experience that compliments our music tastes. For me, it’s the fact that they use listener data to provide a somewhat custom experience for all of us that really makes that a worthwhile product.
Experience is the keyword here. Spotify could just slap a static branding onto some data for us, but they go way further than that. In 2018, Spotify did a groundbreaking thing with their visual branding for Wrapped that amplified and customized the experience for each user. Everything from a fluid grid system, to flexible color palettes, and smooth animation work came together perfectly. Meanwhile, in 2021 it fell apart because they tried to do too much using crazy clashing colors, squashed typography that was impossible to read, and leaned way, way, way too far into the world of digital brutalism. Honestly, I hesitate to assign one specific style to what they did. I can’t even call it Neubrutalism which is maybe close. 2021 was just crap because everything about the design work made the information less of an experience.
Here are the 3 things that 2024 did to bring its design back up to snuff:
This year, Spotify pulled out a limited palette of high-contrast colors and gradients. While you might say that the contrast is too high or the combniations garish, they compensated by always keeping their text elements on the flat color spaces.
This was very much a return to their 2018 approach for color and type — bold type on flat colors.
Compare this to their approach in 2021 which effectively destroyed legibility and may have actually contributed to a spike in self-inflicted blindness among young people. Someone should research that…
“Type as Form” is a concept that lay people may never have heard, but it’s the treatment of text elements like letters, punctuation, and numbers as shape elements. Depending on the intended placements these Type as Form elements may be intended to be legible or fully abstracted. You can see poor attempts at this in the 2021 Wrapped, where type elements were crudely distorted into frankly monstrous shapes with literally no aesthetic value (see examples above).
2024 took a refreshing approach to Type as Form. First, they picked up the numbers from 2024 to use in various arrangements. Second, they blew them up to oversized proportions. Third, they applied gradients to the number forms. Finally, and most interestingly, they cloned and repeated the forms to create dramatic patterns. You might even say that what they did was “Type as Pattern,” which became even more powerful when animation was applied. Whatever you call it, the difference between this and 2021 was an artful use of the number forms that respected the artistry in the forms rather than abusing them through crude distortion.
Variety is key in making a campaign visually compelling. If you see the same thing over and over it can help with recall or recognition, at the cost of sheer boredom. Successful campaigns have a cascading visual presentation with maybe 2 or 3 looks on a theme. The thing that I most enjoyed about the 2024 Wrapped was the experience when you go to share your Wrapped results to other social media platforms. They went the extra mile by creating derivative layouts for sharing — which was totally unnecessary but also totally great.
This is where 2024 struck a middle tone between 2018 and 2021. Whereas Spotify has never topped the level of variety achieved in 2018, they certainly went too far in recent years to the point that Wrapped was just a visual jumble. In contrast, 2024 reflects a sense of taste — that there was such a thing as just far enough. You can see that in the images here, where an animated panel introduces a theme, followed by a simple text presentation, and the surprise additional layout on the share screen. The jump to a condensed iteration of the font, with a larger, bolder size was fresh and unexpected but still aligned with the overall treatment. Also notice that the background elements are consistent in each treatment but are not exactly the same in each slide. This follow-through builds visual interest without leading the campaign down rabbit-holes.
It doesn’t take infinite complexity to pull off a solid campaign. That’s been the mistake with a lot of brands leaning into unbounded “maximalism” in recent years. They chase the trends right into oblivion. However, what Spotify Wrapped 2024 shows is that you can exercise discretion in the service of a great design. All it took was a few simple ingredients: A balanced application of text and color, an interesting application of Type as Form, and just a little bit of variety for delight. That’s a winning combination.
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