Sound and Vision Are the Future of Branding

No one can agree on exactly when branding was born, but its evolution has been rapid. Over hundreds of years, companies have journeyed from hand-painted posters to three-dimensional logos to sound, moving image, virtual reality, and whatever waits for us next.

The art of branding is now a multifaceted discipline. People want to see, hear, and even smell the brands they love, and they expect them to be more dynamic than ever. As companies navigate this huge multimedia landscape, type’s role continues to evolve. It will always be a tool for communication, navigation, and storytelling, but as we move towards more all-encompassing branding, type is constantly finding new forms to inhabit. You only need to look at how social media, streaming platforms, and digital advertising have redefined the use of dynamic type in storytelling.

It’s something we’ve explored in the Sound & Vision theme in our 2025 Type Trends Report, Re:Vision, which discusses how multimedia — in particular kinetic typography, soundscapes, and AI-driven design — is shaping our brand interactions. Companies are using these tools to create deeper connections with consumers. And that makes sense: in an age of constant visual noise, brands are fighting to stand out. Visual identities, adverts, social media posts, experiential activations — all are taking place against a torrent of other audiovisual content. Winning someone over to your brand means making them feel something, and typography has long been a direct path to people’s emotions.

Trust, nostalgia, urgency, excitement — all can be evoked with nothing more than a few letterforms. Combine those with motion and sound and the possibilities are huge. As type, motion, and sound flow around and together, they’re crafting brand narratives that transcend what’s thought of as traditional visual identity. Type will always be there, in static form, but it will also exist in a palette of unique motion gestures. And it’s easy to see how, over time, these moving typographic elements will become an essential part of a brand’s signature.

This broadening of branding is only going to accelerate as AI unlocks new possibilities. As part of our Sound & Vision theme, we’re exploring where this could go by partnering with music licensing company Audiosocket to launch Fonic — an experiential, exploratory web app that lets users see music and hear fonts.

Already, brands are using these kinds of AI tools to create dynamic type, tailor typography for individual users, and synchronize sound and motion — and we’ve barely begun experimenting with the possibilities. Brand identities aren’t just going to be audiovisual, they’ll be fully hyper-personalized, adapting to context, emotion, and user interaction.

Type won’t just move and flow and flourish in real-time — it will respond to how someone feels, or where they are. Imagine a typeface that adapts its weight and structure depending on the music being played, or a soundscape that transforms as a user engages with content. Branding suddenly becomes an evolving, living entity.

As creatives, marketers, and brand leaders, we must embrace this shift. The challenge isn’t just keeping up, it’s about leading the evolution by creating brand experiences that captivate and immerse. Branding has always been emotional, and its future seems even more so as it becomes increasingly linked to what we hear, feel and, ultimately, remember.