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Dropbox stands out as having one of the most bizarre brand redesigns I've ever seen: https://dropbox.design/ https://dropbox.design/
by always_good 9y ago
Dropbox stands out as having one of the most bizarre brand redesigns I've ever seen: https://dropbox.design/ https://dropbox.design/
- tomcam 9y agoThat, ah, really stands alone
- adamnemecek 9y agoI’m glad I’m not the only one. I feel like it’s some sort of reference to popart but like, you are a company that’s doing documents, let’s not get too Warholy.
- EthanHeilman 9y agoDesign fashion has the property that if you do something that pushed the envelope it always seems wrong until it becomes normal and other brands adopt it.
- pmarreck 9y agoThis person gets it. I might also add the heuristic that "if a youngish person is creating it, it probably WILL be the next thing"
- adamnemecek 9y agoThis argument can be used to justify just about any design.
- ignoramous 9y agoHow else do you think Drew Houston was convinced that this design was the right step for them? I'd also like to point out that not all redesigns go as planned, but iteratively eventually 'get' there. See: Android's honeycomb and later Ice Cream Sandwich redesigns before they settled on Material Design. One of the few apps to have gotten design different and right, at the first time of asking, have been, IMHO, WhatsApp, Stripe, and AirBnb.
- teamhappy 9y ago> I feel like it’s some sort of reference to popart I was hoping it's supposed to be a hommage to vintage electronics manuals.
- j_s 9y agoEvolving the Dropbox Brand | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15393684 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15393684 (Oct 2017, 67 comments) > mugsie: Wow. that is (from my perspective - but only mine) terrible. > supernintendo: This is the worst UX I've seen in a long time. Not only that, it's visually garish. > chrissnell: That typeface is just dreadful.
- crankylinuxuser 9y agoPlease for all that is holy, tell me they got hacked or something?
- goldenkey 9y agoNope, goto their actual website, it's all there: https://www.dropbox.com/ https://www.dropbox.com/
- detuur 9y agoFor me it only shows up when I go to https://www.dropbox.com/creativeenergy https://www.dropbox.com/creativeenergy
- tim333 9y agofor comparison here's May 2017's https://web.archive.org/web/20170513061525/https://www.dropbox.com https://web.archive.org/web/20170513061525/https://www.dropb...
- ardit33 9y agoIs it a April's fool thingy?
- vernie 9y agoThe uniformity of response in this thread is what feels like a joke.
- lbotos 9y agoI mean, have you been on the Bloomberg site? https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/404 https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/404 https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/500 https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/500 This is what the general 404 page used to be: https://imgur.com/gallery/0MoqU4Y https://imgur.com/gallery/0MoqU4Y https://www.bloomberg.com/features/elon-musk-goals/ https://www.bloomberg.com/features/elon-musk-goals/
- aglionby 9y agoThe trending feed they have on their homepage is just bizarre -- it scrolls at 2x or 3x the speed of the main body. Half of me is not a fan, but the other half thinks it fits in with the design of the rest of the page (notwithstanding the question of whether /that/ is good).
- puranjay 9y agoI like Bloomberg's redesign. It's bizarre but fun. Moreover, Bloomberg is a media company (well, at least the magazine). They have much more license to be insane. Dropbox is a productivity company and the redesign seems...unwanted? What corporate executive is looking at his Dropbox and thinking that you know, this needs some Sharp Grotesk
- justinjlynn 9y agoYeah -- I... well, I'll stick with the bubbly bootstrap 5-second template look please, if this is what's going to be popular next. It's genuinely and actively hard to look at.
- josiahtullis 9y agoI agree, I've really enjoyed the Bloomberg redesign.
- ryanlol 9y ago>This is what the general 404 page used to be: >https://imgur.com/gallery/0MoqU4Y https://imgur.com/gallery/0MoqU4Y Used to be? https://www.bloomberg.com/gdhdsgsd https://www.bloomberg.com/gdhdsgsd
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- skykooler 9y agoThe only one I can think of being on this scale is when Uber switched their app logo from the grey U to a weird sideways pacman made of wires.
- spraak 9y agoThey also recently switched the clever black and white fork logo for UberEats to a very generic green and white with no symbol, just the name "Uber Eats". Weird
- bduerst 9y agoThat first animation reminds me of this: https://youtu.be/F6Srzcm8EEg?t=13s https://youtu.be/F6Srzcm8EEg?t=13s
- zouhair 9y agoHoly crap, that is one obnoxious website. Worst than the early 2000 ones.
- fs111 9y agowat?
- hitekker 9y agoWhat an eyesore.
- eecc 9y agoSeems to be the new fad, Skype for iOS has that feel and also Meetup (ugh!) very hipster coworking spaces in Amsterdam also indulge in tinted two-tones. Looks like some thougtless photo effect thrown in just for the sake of it, but it became somewhat more unintentionally trending
- DiThi 9y agoWTF is wrong with the scroll bar? It's useless. A hijacked scroll wheel with slow speed doesn't help either.
- vernie 9y agoJust to break up the homogeneity of this thread: I like it.
- hansjorg 9y agoIt's beautiful, fun and quite daring. I would generally opt for the 'straightforward and professional looking' solution, but that might be because I'm boring and generally unimaginative. Kinda sad realizing that you prefer this, but would chose boring just because it's somehow more safe.
- vernie 9y agoMoreover none of their actual apps (web, desktop, mobile) have adopted this aesthetic, so what's everyone on about?
- briankelly 9y agoI think it's a little bit more about honesty than safety. Sort of like the advice pounded into us in our teenage years to "just be yourself" because people can smell insecurity from a mile away.
- lobster_johnson 9y agoI don't think it's the aesthetics that people react to. The aesthetics are a little on the 1980s neon retro side, but personally, I find this almost creepily dissonant purely in how far the message is from the product. Nobody would deny that lots of people use Dropbox for "creative" work. But Dropbox itself has nothing to do with creativity -- there's no sense in which Dropbox itself can be a fun, zany, kinetic kind of experience. It's not GoPro. It's a folder that syncs. This design reeks of someone uncool trying to appeal to a young, fashion-conscious demographic, with cringeworthy results. It's as transparently cynical as any attempt Microsoft (for example) have ever made to appeal to anyone younger than 30.
- goldenkey 9y agoThe design is just as bad on their actual website: https://www.dropbox.com/ https://www.dropbox.com/ Man..that Sharp Grotesk font. So out of place for a productivity company..What utility thinks of themselves as an art studio?
- dokem 9y agoI really don't understand why Dropbox is trying so hard to be more than they are - A file syncing service. That's all anyone wants out of them. They sync files, that's all they do, and they do it well. No one wants them to be some collaboration platform pushing the envelope of UI design. I'm sorry Dropbox, but you're just never going to be the show runner. Just keep doing what you're doing - syncing files in the background. There's no shame in that.
- arachnids 9y ago> That's all anyone wants out of them I'm sure they have better data on this than you or I do. There is an unfortunate tendency on HN to assume people are idiots who don't know what they're doing, as evidenced by every "why does company X need Y engineers??!!" comment.
- jackcnreturns 9y agoLast time I heard Twitter only needed 100 engineers.
- sudoscript 9y agoExcept investors. This "collaborative platform" angle is clearly designed with the IPO roadshow in mind.
- djsumdog 9y agoThis is what has made Dropbox so successful. You have files. They sync. It does one thing and it does it really well. I'll also admit their enterprise tool that lets you sync only some files as you need them is also seems cool, although I've never worked at a place that used it, and even if I did, I'd probably have to use it in a VM since I've used Linux at my last three jobs. Dropbox could try to build new products. Keep Dropbox as it is, but then try to branch out and build other tools. Maybe other office tools, or project management tools? They could keep the same login systems if they wants to pitch them to enterprise. But I agree, their core product is sold and should stay that way. Their brand can help them quite a bit if they start offering other products, but only if they're up to the same quality.
- spyckie2 9y agoAllowing this to go through screams to me that there's no objective design leadership in the company. How did something so awful manage to get past however many employees, executives, design reviews, and into the press? Steve Jobs who had incredible design leadership made sure each design decision had a solid reason and a strongly felt impact in the experience. This design is the exact opposite of that.
- pgwhalen 9y agoFor what it’s worth, since no one is taking the other side, my first impression is pretty good (though I’m on mobile). Obviously it is extremely bold, to the point that it’s almost more art than it is design, but I like it, cause why not.
- reachtarunhere 9y agoI guess it would have been tremendously hard to select a more painful-to-eyes color scheme.