What font does Spotify use?

Circular is the face behind a decade of Spotify: released by Lineto in 2013 and adopted by Spotify in its 2015 rebrand, then extended into customised versions commissioned from the foundry for the company’s own use. It is one of the most recognisable geometric sans faces of the last fifteen years, and a good part of why so much software from that period looks like the rest of it.

The geometry is not as rigid as it first appears. The circles are very nearly circles, which is what gives it the warmth, but the terminals are cut at angles that keep it from going stiff, and the lowercase a keeps its bowl and stem rather than collapsing into the single-storey shape a purely geometric face would take. That mix is why it can carry a headline and a caption without looking like two different decisions.

Circular itself is a commercial typeface and can be licensed from Lineto — the Spotify cuts cannot, and are not sold. If you want the look without the licence, what you are after is a geometric sans with a two-storey a and generous round bowls.