ABOUT

Wikimedia, the free knowledge movement behind Wikipedia, collaborated with MassiveMusic and with its community of volunteers to run a global contest to find out what the sum of all human knowledge sounds like. MassiveMusic helped Wikimedia to strategise, brief and judge a contest to source a sound that could represent what Wikimedia projects stand for — trustworthy, reliable, open, and accessible knowledge for all.

The open, worldwide contest to find the sound logo, organized by the Wikimedia Foundation, started in September 2022 and received over 3,000 submissions from 135 countries. The entries were narrowed down to 10 finalists that Wikimedians could vote on — and over 2,000 of them did!

Created by Thaddeus Osborne, a nuclear engineer and music producer from Virginia, USA, the winning entry combined the sounds of turning the pages of a book with keyboard clicks and a synthesizer chime, representing the huge body of knowledge that people can access digitally through Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. While we have identified the winner, we are still in the process of finalizing the audio by professionally re-recording it. We are hoping to have the final sound logo by June 2023.