Deezer (2019)Copied

Deezer, founded in Paris in 2007, had 14 million monthly users and 53 million tracks in 2019, against Spotify's 217 million and Apple Music's 56 million, according to Design Week. It wanted to present itself as the human, local alternative, and on 7 May 2019 it launched a new look across its app and desktop.

The work was done by Deezer's in-house team, which CB News confirmed. The all-capitals logotype was replaced by a lowercase one in Mabry Pro, a rounder sans chosen to look friendly, joyful and trustworthy, with the lowercase meant to signal a human and personalised approach. The equaliser symbol, Deezer's long-running mark, was kept but made smaller and subtler, its distinct colour blocks turned into a gradient. The logo had already appeared in the La Relève campaign before the full launch.

The product changed too: more space, less text, dedicated treatments for playlists and channels, and a player whose background takes on the colours of the current track's cover art. Chief product officer Stefan Tweraser said the interface aimed to be light, functional and playful, and that colour-matching the player gave each user a personal visual experience. He insisted the redesign was not a result of competitive pressure.

One Design Week reader replied that the wordmark was frightfully similar to the Dezeen logo, which was hard to unsee.

Chief executive Hans-Holger Albrecht said in the newsroom release that Deezer wanted a modern and human service that stands out from anything else on the market, with a look reflecting its mindset as an industry challenger. The release also pitched Flow, its mix of old favourites and new recommendations in one stream, as the feature only Deezer offered, and said the app aimed to nudge people gently out of their musical comfort zone. Challenger branding works best with one thing nobody else has. Flow is that thing, and the friendlier identity is right to frame it.

The cover-art player is the strongest idea here, because it puts the music, not the brand, on screen. The identity is pleasant but generic: lowercase geometric sans, softened gradient, human messaging. It is the 2019 tech playbook executed neatly, and it does little to make Deezer more distinctive against a far larger rival.