Corporate Sound Design

While I don’t typically work with corporations, I was recently contracted by a company to create an audio style guide – that is, the sounds heard in their advertisements, interfaces, social media, and website. This basically revolves around creating their audio brand, sounds that encompass the brand’s audio logo, product sounds, and other sounds the user may experience in their interactions with the brand.

Audio logos are a relatively short audio clip that’s easily associated with the brand. Things like the THX noise, or the TED talk chime are audio logos. Creating one is usually a big deal, as big a deal as the graphic logo, as it’s in every video and audio advertisement and possibly elsewhere. Like with graphic logos, the audio logo has to represent the company, but usually on a more emotional level, and usually recognizable anywhere on any sound system, from my Genelecs to some Skullcandys. It usually takes multiple iterations to get it right.

A company’s audio identity – sounds that show the brand’s personality – are commonly heard alongside media related to the brand, like video ads and product sounds. Creating that identity through audio branding is generally a strategic one meant to increase brand recognition and engagement. It has to complement the brand a company already has; for example, if a film studio is known for epic fantasy films, their audio logo would likely be a large orchestral sound, and they’d use epic orchestral works, maybe with synthetic elements if they’re more sci-fi fantasy like with the Halo franchise, in trailers.

Other companies, like Amazon, would need a whole audio ecosystem, encompassing the entire user experience – in the limited scope of their Alexa devices, this would include key presses, the device’s voice, processing sounds, timer sounds, and startup sounds. This is true of ringtones as well, such as the default iOS ringtone or Nextel chirp being instantly recognizable.

As for how to go about making any of that, I personally just look towards similar companies, then either make something similar or completely opposite, depending on the client’s brand personality compared to competitors.