Paul TinkerProduct designer · Design systems Back to portfolio

Case study · The Guardian × Spotify

What are you really into?

An interactive campaign that turned people's Spotify listening into a musical footprint, a genre catalogue and a logo of their own, to get more of them using Discover Weekly.

Discover Weekly builds a personal playlist every Monday from what you listen to. Spotify wanted more people to know it existed, and needed a way to tell a wide audience that felt personal rather than like an advert. Spotify partnered with Guardian Labs, and I came up with the concept: an experience that asks one question, and lets your own listening history answer it. I was the designer and art director, from the idea through to the footprint system, the logo and every screen.

Role
Concept, Design and Art Direction
When
2016
Client
Spotify, made by Guardian Labs
Promoting
Discover Weekly

The logo takes on each person's top five genre colours.

~40,000People found out what they were really into
4Weeks live
5Genres, colours and patterns in every footprint

One question, answered by your listening

Log in with Spotify and the experience reads your listening history, finds your top five genres and gives you three things that belong to you alone.

  • A musical footprint Each of your genres brings one colour and one pattern, layered into an image of your own.
  • A bespoke genre catalogue A page for each genre: what it is, and the tracks of yours that put it there.
  • A personal logo and share card Both take on your footprint's colours, ready to post.

Three ways through

Most people arrived from a friend's share or a Guardian placement, logged in once, and left with something to post. Anyone could browse the genres without logging in, but only a logged-in visitor got a footprint.

A. Find out what you're into. The main journey: one login turns a listening history into a footprint, a catalogue and a card to share.

Landing screen: the logo, an invitation to log in to Spotify, Log in to start, and a footprint card reading I'm into bubble trance.
A. Find out what you're intoLandingExample footprints rotate on the card, and the logo changes colour to match each one.
Spotify login screen asking to let What are you really into? read your top artists, tracks and recently played, with Agree and continue.
A. Find out what you're intoLog in with SpotifySpotify asks permission to read the visitor's listening history.
Loading screen: the logo above a footprint being drawn, with the message Giving each genre a colour and a progress bar.
A. Find out what you're intoReading your historyAfter one Spotify login, the top five genres are found and the footprint draws itself as the logo takes on its colours.
Your genres: chamber pop, arab folk, louisiana blues, urban contemporary and swedish jazz over your footprint, with a Make my card button.
A. Find out what you're intoHere's what you're intoYour footprint behind your top five genres, each named in its own colour.
Chamber pop genre page under your footprint: a description, emerged early 1990s, roots US and UK, tempo 90 to 120 BPM, and bubbles as its pattern in your footprint.
A. Find out what you're intoA genre of yoursWhat the genre is, where it came from, and the tracks of yours that chose it, under your footprint.
Share card dialog: the logo, a footprint reading I'm into chamber pop, the caption What are you really into, and a Copy caption button.
A. Find out what you're intoMake your cardOne image with your logo, footprint and genre, plus a caption ready to post.
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B. Share and bring friends in. Every share card is an invitation. A friend sees the post, lands on the same question, logs in and gets a footprint of their own, so the journey loops back to the start.

Share card dialog reading I'm into chamber pop, with a Copy caption button.
B. Share and bring friends inMake your cardMade from a genre page or the genre list, with a caption ready to post.
A social post: I'm into chamber pop. What are you really into? with the share card image.
B. Share and bring friends inPosted on socialThe caption asks the question back: what are you really into?
Landing screen with the logo, Log in to start and a footprint card.
B. Share and bring friends inA friend landsThey see example footprints and the same question.
Spotify login screen asking to let What are you really into? read your top artists, tracks and recently played, with Agree and continue.
B. Share and bring friends inThey log inAnd get a footprint of their own, which starts the first flow again.
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C. Browse without logging in. Genre pages work for everyone, but only your own top five genres show your footprint. Every other genre page is plain.

Start exploring: a few genres to try before logging in, permanent wave, chamber pop, indie r&b, neo-psychedelic and metropopolis.
C. Browse without logging inStart exploringExample genres to start with, linked from the landing page, no login needed.
Permanent wave genre page without a footprint: a description, emerged late 1970s, roots UK and US, tempo 110 to 150 BPM.
C. Browse without logging inA genre pageNo footprint here. Just the genre, what it is and where to start listening.
The end of a genre page: three tracks to start with, Open playlist, and chips for other genres.
C. Browse without logging inKeep exploringChips link sideways to other genres, also without a footprint.
Spotify login screen asking to let What are you really into? read your top artists, tracks and recently played, with Agree and continue.
C. Browse without logging inLog in to get yoursThe way to a footprint is always through your own listening.
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Five genres in, one footprint out

Every genre owns a colour and a pattern from a library of patterns, such as bubbles, shards, petals, swirls and ripples. Your number one genre sets the background, and the other four layer on top. The same five colours, in the same order, colour the words of your logo and the names in your catalogue, so everything you take away matches.

How a footprint is made: five genres, each with a colour and pattern, combine into one patterned footprint, which then colours the logo and the genre names.
Five genres, each with its own colour and pattern, become one footprint, then colour your logo and genre names.
Four footprints from the experience, each a different mix of colours and patterns.
Four footprints from the experience, each built from a different person's top five genres.

Results

Around 40,000 people visited over four weeks. What they were into also told Spotify which genres its listeners cared about most.

The most popular genres

  1. permanent wave
  2. chamber pop
  3. indie r&b
  4. neo-psychedelic
  5. metropopolis