Reframing SoundCloud as an underground record store — trading a metric-heavy social feed for a tactile, physical sense of music discovery.
SoundCloud has always occupied an interesting space between listening and making music. But our research suggested that these two sides of the platform could sometimes compete for attention.
Community feedback pointed to a mix of concerns around discovery, interface complexity, content overload, and the visibility of independent artists.
Current SoundCloud Interface
Across community feedback, app-store feedback, and the Brand Scanner analysis, four patterns stood out:
Recommendations, feeds, playlists, and other content often competed for attention.
SoundCloud supports both listeners and creators, but their needs are not always the same.
Finding music beyond familiar recommendations often required more active effort.
The amount of interface information surrounding music could make the artist and their work feel secondary.
These patterns pointed toward a clearer separation of discovery, listening, and creation rather than simply adding more features.
Rather than treating these as isolated UI problems, I looked at how SoundCloud could make its different modes of use clearer:
The opportunity became less about adding features and more about giving each activity a clearer place in the experience.
Using InspoAI's Brand Scanner, I deconstructed the interface to find where visual and structural friction originates. The scan showed a platform juggling social, streaming, and creator functions, with competing elements often pulling attention away from the music.
InspoAI Brand Scanner output
Moves from a passive social feed to a tactile, structured discovery experience. New Arrivals shows tracks from followed artists, Staff Picks replicates handwritten record store recommendations, and Front Rack surfaces what's hot right now — displayed on wood-paneled virtual shelves.
Acts as a unified hub, consolidating Feed and Vibes into one screen. The bento-style genre layout makes browsing feel like flipping through record bins — each genre tile is a tactile entry point, not a flat list item.
Reimagined as a dual-purpose space mirroring a record store's back-of-house. My Collection functions as a digital crate. My Studio below the divider gives artists a dedicated upload and insights suite — no more burying these tools inside settings.
By pulling administrative settings into a primary pillar, the Profile hub centralizes user identity and eliminates navigational friction — surfacing quick actions for editing and sharing, simplifying the log-out flow, and ensuring the library remains a focused space for listening and creation.
The emotional heart of the redesign — built like a high-end turntable setup. A rotating vinyl disk reflects the current track's artwork, stacked records at the top hint at the queue without opening it, and the waveform scrubber sits below in SoundCloud's signature orange.
Five moments shaped the redesign: landing on the record-store metaphor, anchoring it around two personas, restructuring the navigation into four pillars, building a typography system that bridges analog and digital, and the decisions that followed.
To reclaim SoundCloud's soul, I reimagined the platform as an Underground Record Store — shifting away from the social-media scroll toward a tactile, physical experience that treats every track as a rare artifact and restores the emotional weight of discovery.
Concept Moodboard
Wood-paneled shelving and tactile layouts treat albums as tangible artifacts, not flat thumbnails.
The SoundCloud logo rendered in glowing amber neon, replicating the vibrant energy of a storefront sign.
Staff Picks use mixed-media icons — polaroids, paperclips, vinyl — to signal hand-selected recommendations over algorithm.
A currently-playing screen built like a high-end turntable setup, giving artists' work the atmosphere it deserves.
Rather than designing for generic users, I anchored the concept around two specific personas who define the underground scene.
The person who walks in not knowing what they want, but knowing exactly how they want to find it. They're not looking for hits — they're after hidden gems, and they want a space that rewards their curiosity.
The creator who treats their music like a physical masterpiece, not a digital file. They don't just want to upload — they want to display their work in a space that feels premium, authentic, and gives them a dedicated corner to host their fans.
The SoundCloud app jams listener content (playlists, likes) and creator tools (upload stats, tracks) into the same chaotic drawer. Fixing this without bloating the bottom navigation meant a strict structural choice.
The new Information Architecture replaces the cluttered social-feed model with four distinct pillars, ensuring the user is never more than two taps from their destination.
Designed for high-curation discovery. Prioritizes "Front Rack" and "Staff Picks" — like walking into a store where the trending and curated work is already on display.
Consolidates Feed and Vibes (genres) into one screen, eliminating navigation layers and restoring the natural flow of discovery with a bento-style tactile layout.
Divided into "My Collection" and "My Studio" — a listener's personal crate on one side, and a full artist upload and insights suite on the other.
A centralized hub for personalization and settings. Administrative tasks pulled into one column so the rest of the UI stays focused entirely on the music.
Information Architecture
Primary headers. Evokes the bold, stamped authority of industrial label makers and vintage record sleeves. Provides the analog soul.
All metadata and functional text. Its precision ensures maximum legibility and a seamless digital flow without competing with the analog aesthetic.
| Research finding | Opportunity | Design response |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery felt crowded | Create clearer paths into exploration | Front Rack, Staff Picks, and curated discovery |
| Listening and creating served different goals | Separate user intents | Collection for listening, Studio for creation |
| Genre discovery required more effort | Make exploration more intentional | Explore organized around genres, moods, and scenes |
| Navigation mixed too many tasks | Give each destination a clearer role | Four-pillar IA across Home, Explore, Library, and Profile |
| Artist identity could get buried | Give music and artists more visual emphasis | Artist-led profiles and tactile content spaces |
| Digital interfaces can feel flat | Bring more character into the listening experience | Record-store visual language across shelves, vinyl, typography, and physical cues |
These decisions became the foundation for the record-store concept.
Unlike a purely conceptual project, this one has two concrete outcomes to point to: how it placed against other entries, and the accessibility standard it was built to meet.
Placed 2nd at the Inspo AI Redesign Hackathon (2026), winning against other entries for a strong visual system, clear articulation of the UX problem, and thoughtful use of Inspo AI throughout the process.
I used WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines as a core benchmark for this redesign—particularly focusing on high-contrast surfaces with the dark theme and ensuring primary interactive elements met sizing standards. While a full code audit is still required for production compliance, accessibility was a primary driver for my contrast and layout choices.
The record store metaphor wasn't just a visual skin — it became a decision-making framework. Every time a design choice came up, I could ask "does this feel like something you'd find in a record store?" and get a clear answer.
Mapping user flows and structural layout first made every design choice feel earned rather than purely cosmetic.
Working within a sprint taught me that constraints are a superpower. Instead of getting overwhelmed by the entire SoundCloud ecosystem, the hackathon deadline forced me to isolate the core friction points — resulting in a tighter, more focused redesign than an open timeline would have produced.
UI isn't just about utility — it's about protecting the brand's soul. Strip away the generic corporate layers, and you're not just making the app "cleaner"; you're building an atmosphere that invites people to stay and dig deeper.