Nextbeat Visual Identity

Nextbeat: Visual Identity Logo design · Brand identity · Typography · Colour system · Internal communications

Nextbeat is a music-first venture spun out of Space Ape Games, the studio behind the globally acclaimed mobile title Beatstar. The brief for the logo and identity was built around five key pillars: Cool, Powerful, High-End, Disruptive, and Music.

Concept

Music is a deeply human experience — one rooted in feeling, not function. With so many modern music brand identities trending toward the generic and over-refined, the response had to feel human first. The solution came from a hand-written letterform: that touch of personalisation, intent, and deliberate imperfection was the right way to reflect a company positioning itself as genuinely music-first.

The structural logic of the mark went deeper still. The N and B were formed using a mirrored eighth note — chosen precisely for its meaning in music theory: if a whole note lasts a full beat, an eighth note lasts half — signalling the transition into the next beat. The name made literal in the form.

Refinement stage: addressing readability issues posed from initial hand-written brush pen study.

A reflection of studies and various treatments for each one.

Colour

The colour palette was rooted in the real-world timeline of the company's formation. Nextbeat began taking shape in Autumn 2024, with a planned launch in Spring 2025. Muscari — a grape flower planted in autumn to bloom in spring — became the thematic anchor. The palette was built on contrast: night and day, warm and cold, reflecting the breadth and spectrum of music itself.

Typography

Helvetica Inserat and Poppins were selected for their intrinsic typographic properties, each directly addressing three of the five creative brief pillars — providing the structural confidence the handwritten mark needed to sit alongside.

Application

The identity was rolled out across all internal communications channels — Slack, product and presentation decks, company documents, and all touchpoints within Nextbeat's game portfolio.

Scope of work: Logo design · Brand identity · Typography system · Colour system · Internal communications rollout