Apple has revealed how it used music itself to create the visuals for its new Apple Music rebrand, which features a "made by sound" rippling visual sting. The effort follows a chunkier redesign of the Apple Music logo and a new visual identity unveiled at the opening of Apple Music Hall in Battersea, London. In a new video, Apple explains that months of work went into the design.
"For the rebrand of Apple Music, we wanted sound to create the visuals," says the narrator. "How do we take this idea of music and distill it into something visually beautiful? Essentially the idea was to create the perfect sound wave." Apple Music partnered with British producer Fred Again... and NEST Acoustics to create a visual identity formed from sound.
The process involved playing a frequency through a rig that moves a large amount of liquid at the frequency of the notes. An Apple Music logo was etched into the glass floor of a small tank filled with mineral oil, with a transparent app-icon-shaped cover placed over it. When a short series of tones was played, a transducer sent the oil rippling and distorting the logo.
The footage will serve as a short sting introducing Apple Music videos, while a two-note logo version will overlay the start of footage such as concert videos. Both versions are strongly reminiscent of Apple's Liquid Glass redesign. Because the effect was created in-camera with a practical method rather than CGI, it mirrors the approach Apple took for its Apple TV rebrand in November 2025.
Source: AppleInsider · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing