News

Everdome Announces First-Ever Metaverse Soundtrack

The interplanetary metaverse project has revealed the opening single from the world’s first metaverse-specific soundtrack.

Published

4 years ago

October 21, 2022

Nour Nasir

Everdome

Created in tandem with music composer Wojciech Urbański, a single called “Machine Phoenix” is being released today which forms part of the first-ever metaverse-specific soundtrack.

The project is called the “Everdome Original Metaverse Soundtrack”. It will give a unique atmosphere and background ambiance to Everdome’s hyper-realistic landscape, which is based on a future Mars settlement, using blockchain and VR technology.

Wojciech Urbański is a gifted composer with a portfolio of award-winning tracks that have been used by the likes of Netflix and Canal+. Wojciech’s Spotify community currently comprises over 600,000 monthly listeners, while overall, his tracks have been played more than 50 million times. The Everdome project hopes to use the composer’s talents to add drama to its hyper-realistic storytelling and visuals.

“Creating a musical illustration of the cosmos and space exploration is probably a dream held by every composer. This collaboration is for me a great artistic opportunity, as the setting of an immersive metaverse world permits the use of a very wide range of sounds and tools,” says Wojciech Urbański.

Metaverse users will hear Wojciech’s work as they launch from Everdome’s virtual Hatta spaceport to the Mars Cycler, situated in Earth’s lower orbit, with the musical collaboration evoking a similar atmosphere to Harry Gregson-Williams’ soundtrack for “The Martian” or Hans Zimmer’s “Dune”.

Also Read: Bedu Has Built A Metaverse Of The UAE’s Planned Mars Trip

As well as partnering with Wojciech Urbański, Everdome is also utilizing the talents of Michał Fojcik, a sound supervisor and designer who has worked on blockbusters including X-Men: Dark Phoenix and Solo. A Star Wars Story.

“Building a sonic background for a metaverse experience is a uniquely challenging task. In the absence of true forms of touch or smell, the visual and the sonic take on huge levels of importance if the experience is to be considered truly hyper-realistic,” says Michał Fojcik, sound supervisor and advisor.

Both artists will be dedicated to the creation of a sonic soundscape that will significantly enhance the quality of Everdome’s storytelling, and you can hear the first single from their collaboration, “Machine Phoenix”, on all major music distribution platforms, including Spotify, Anghami, and YouTube from today.

News

Instagram Redraws Its Wordmark And The Internet Reads “Instagzam”

Instagram’s first wordmark refresh in a decade arrives with new fonts, a restrained gradient — and a Reddit verdict of sidegrade.

Published

4 days ago

August 14, 2026

Nour Nasir

Instagram

Although Instagram’s famous camera icon hasn’t changed, the company has refreshed the handwritten wordmark at the top of its app. This is the first redesign we’ve seen in ten years, and one the internet promptly set about renaming.

“The wordmark at the top of the app hasn’t changed in 10 years, so it was time for a refresh,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri wrote in a post on August 13, describing the new version as “cleaner and more modern” while keeping references to the original design.

Instagram says its team explored hundreds of options — all-caps lettering, camera-inspired concepts, even literal handwriting — before returning to script. “Script reflects individuality, so referencing that felt right,” Instagram director of product design Jasmine Probst said in Meta’s announcement. “The new wordmark is bolder and simpler, with touches of unexpectedness. It cues individual expression, a personal voice, both of which have always been core to Instagram”.

The wordmark is part of a broader brand overhaul: an updated Instagram Sans typeface, two new fonts — the hand-drawn Instagram Pen and Instagram Mono — plus refreshed motion and layouts, and more restrained use of the signature gradient. The wordmark is rolling out globally now, with the rest arriving throughout 2026 and beyond.

Also Read: Spotify Will Now Tell You If Your Favorite Artist Isn’t Real

The design mixes cursive and print lettering, some characters connected and others floating free. That hybrid approach, combined with unusually shaped “s” and “r” characters, led some users to conclude the logo actually reads “Instagzam”. On the r/logodesign subreddit, one user said the wordmark looked “fan-made,” like something built in Canva; another called it “an unsettling mix of manuscript and cursive”; a third summarized it as a “sidegrade” — or, inevitably, a “zidegrade”.

Not everyone was hostile to the new look. Some found the half-cursive design stylish and surprisingly readable, while others called it an improvement on its predecessor, and one commenter argued Instagram was simply adopting minimalist branding later than everyone else. Either way, the platform now has a refreshed identity, three updated fonts, and an unofficial new pronunciation.