Logology
The Strange, Uninspired History of Spotify’s Bland Logo
The music company has succeeded despite its branding, not because of it
There is no romantic story behind Spotify’s name.
In a post on the question-and-answer site Quora, Spotify founder Daniel Ek writes that, in 2006, he and co-founder Martin Lorentzon “were sitting in different rooms shouting ideas back and forth… even using jargon generators and stuff,” when Lorentzon shouted a name that Ek misheard as “Spotify.” Ek Googled the name and saw that nobody else was using it. “A few minutes later,” he writes, “we registered the domain names and off we went.”
The story highlights how the founders moved quickly and decisively to capitalize on a bit of luck in establishing their brand. Spotify, though, has succeeded despite its branding, not because of it. Its name and logo sprang from an early 2000s trend (attaching an “-ify” suffix to a word) that hundreds of other companies were following, and as a result exudes a generic blandness that says nothing about, you know, music.
Many new companies’ initial names and logos are ill-considered and quickly changed. But Spotify is an interesting example of a business that started with a bad name and logo and just stuck with both. In the face of…
