6 ms·

Redesign of MailChimp

53 points by sgallant 16y ago

reason 16y ago
You could not have done a worse thing to their previous branding an image, which I thought was pretty damn good in the first place. Nowhere on the homepage does it tell me what MailChimp actually does. The content font is pretty small, and hard to read many of the times. The feature and resource pages are painful to browse. All these artsy images are absolutely unnecessary. Even the guides themselves are actually pdf books you have to download, formatted in artsy ways, making the entire process of searching for help and answers really, really unpleasant. They've sacrificed tons of usability. I'm a bit shocked that they'd do that, personally.
- rhizome 16y ago
  It could have been intentional. For instance, if they saw themselves being painted into a corner in the future, businesswise, they may want to make a branding break with their past sooner than later. They can always foreground the chimp, the color blue (or whatever) later.
ComputerGuru 16y ago
I liked the old site A LOT better. This one seems slightly amateurish and too artsy. Why a big blue hue on everything? This isn't art class, and we don't need to see their creative side. Show me a cute monkey, show me emails.... Don't drown me in blue! I'm looking at the site on a 1680X1050 display, and I cannot see WHAT the site is about... It did not occur to me to scroll down, because it seems to "end" at the fold, what with the boxes that typically precede the footer being there and all. No one looking at the site will have any clue what MailChimp is or does. Their logo doesn't appear above the fold, the word "email" doesn't even appear above the fold! I don't know what they think they did!
- ecaroth 16y ago
  Completely agree - the new design of the site doesn't lend itself to mailchimp's "culture" like the old one did. I thought the old site was damn near prefect for what it was!
- oneplusone 16y ago
  They sacrificed a TON of usability in order to become this artsy. I am not sure why since art has nothing to do with email--especially not business email. The worse example of this is their feature tour. It is actually very painful to read now with way too much space wasted on illustration that contribute nothing. I couldn't find a single screenshot of the app. I sure hope they are split testing this.
  - prawn 16y ago
    I think artsy is the wrong word. It's just more muted, pastel and common. As of my check, there is a giant chimp mascot on the front page, so they might have changed that, but the rest just looks like 50% of design shop redesigns from the last 3-4 years. The massive title on the home page is "Still free, just bigger." Still free what? Spell it out for people. I, like almost everyone commenting here, preferred the older design and personally would've run with tweaking that for the next 2-3 years rather than pushing out a redesign for the sake of it.
- bobds 16y ago
  "DESIGNER TEMPLATES" When I looked at the old website, I knew what service they provided in a few seconds. Now, I'd think they are some kind of design shop.
  - kaylarose 16y ago
    Agreed, especially since one of their core markets is non-tech savvy people. Imagine if you've never heard of MailChimp before, and ended up there via Googling "easy newsletter subscriptions". User questions: "What does this do?", "Is it complicated?", and "How much does it cost?". I would venture to say it would be almost and immediate bounce. On the landing page to have to watch a video at the bottom of the page to figure out what MailChimp is...really?!
- sambeau 16y ago
  "Show me a cute monkey" /pushes a small grey triangle/
mbesto 16y ago
"If ain't broke don't bother fixing it"
wdewind 16y ago
There seems to be a trend in design the last few months (GAP, American Apparel, NBCUniversal the other day) and now MailChimp joins the ranks of people who throw out existing, awesome brands. The monkey is still somewhat present on the page, but this is really a downgrade from the old page. It definitely doesn't look good, and it completely disregards all the brand equity they've built up. It's too bad, because they had a great brand that I really responded to, even though I wasn't even a customer (I just realized I have recommended the service multiple times without even using it).
antidaily 16y ago
I don't mind the design but how about a sentence near the top to new visitors know what MailChimp is. (I see the video further down the page)
paraschopra 16y ago
They should have A/B tested the new design v/s old design. It is so trivial to do that I am amazed why companies take huge risks going with an unproven new design.
- JonnieCache 16y ago
  Perhaps because they have spent a lot of money on the new design, and the people responsible don't want to invite the possibility of it being revealed as unsuitable? This is not meant as any kind of judgement on anyone at mailchimp. Just thinking aloud.
- svnv 16y ago
  They do have multiple designs right now, just try to refresh the site. I'm guessing they are keeping track of the conversion rate on each of the designs and will change them once they have enough data points.
  - joshuacc 16y ago
    Those don't appear to be multiple designs, but a single design which randomly features different "stories."
khangtoh 16y ago
New site does not appeal to me at ALL.. I like the old site a loooooot more. Why did they lose the Chimp? I don't get that. They literally built their brand around the "Chimp". They've lost their identity (the chimp) ;P
svnv 16y ago
There seems to be multiple designs, try refreshing the site to see some of the other ones. I don't like the new designs, when i first saw the "Designer templates" one I actually had to check the url just to verify that I was still at mailchimp.com and not some generic design tutorial site.
moe 16y ago
They should just silently revert and pretend this never happened.
- rhizome 16y ago
  You know, they'd get tons of goodwill for something like that.
mceachen 16y ago
The internal site was hit over the head with the pastel bat, too. They should revert their CSS changes -- the prior look was consistent and usable.
patio11 16y ago
I am agnostic on which will work better for the business, but I have an emotional connection with Chimpy. Chimpy is so instantly lovable that my mother can recall, two years later, that my B2B mail service provider is "the one with Chimpy." I have a Chimpy t-shirt that my girlfriend specifically requests I wear. I am not a designer or a brand guy, and I'm willing to be convinced by an A/B test showing Faceless Corporate stomps all over Chimpy... but crkey, I would think long and hard about giving him up.
- limedaring 16y ago
  I believe I have the same Chimpy tee-shirt (grey AA?) which is one of my favorite teeshirts ever in terms of design and comfort. Such a great mascot, and instantly recognizable as Mailchimp. Are they giving him up for good?
- catshirt 16y ago
  i too am agnostic. i think they're both great designs. that said, looks like Chimpy is back :)
netmau5 16y ago
Design looks nice, if a little rushed, artistically but completely misses the point of the business.
hkuo 16y ago
Screenshot of previous design for comparison: http://i.imgur.com/aeKr8.jpg http://i.imgur.com/aeKr8.jpg I agree with the general sentiment here. I'm baffled and confused why they made this change. The reason I happened to have a screenshot is because I keep a folder of images of sites I think work exceptionally well. They lost both their usability as well as their humanity. That's a double whammy. I'd love to see a post from them explaining the redesign and any results that may come from this.
- flyosity 16y ago
  I heard they drastically downplayed their well-known chimp branding and color palette because they'll soon be making a big play into a white-labeled offering which will be totally without branding and customizable. This site redesign is the middle ground to acclimate existing customers to the big change before they roll out the updated app with white-labeling offered.
  - hkuo 16y ago
    I'm not sure what the connection is between white-labeling a product and rebranding oneself, if white-labeling is essentially stripping the product of the brand to be replaced by the brand of the customer. Unless it's simply to appeal more to a new set of customers, particularly ad or PR agencies, which is a totally legitimate reason for this rebrand. But even in that light, I prefer the previous site, which instills a no-nonsense level of trust. But this is just my opinion on the brand aspect of the redesign. I think everything else they've changed and added with the site are excellent, particularly the resource section which feels like a library of manuals. The customer stories in video format is a great idea too, though I was confused by the actual videos, which simply did not get to the point of how they related to Mailchimp, at least not as long as I watched before getting bored and stopping the video.
- there 16y ago
  screenshot of current design: http://i.imgur.com/uhNCCl.jpg http://i.imgur.com/uhNCCl.jpg what am i missing here? i disabled adblock and flashblock. ff4 beta mac.
malbiniak 16y ago
Is it fair to assume that the "Powered by Happy Cog Hosting" implies Happy Cog was behind the redesign? Potentially irrelevant, but curious. Regardless, I agree. This seems like a step back. I'm a huge fan of Mailchimp, their brand (well, to date), and the way they engage their users (aka "support"). Mailchimp is known for their ease of use, but this design doesn't reinforce that, especially the overuse of imagery (ref: http://mailchimp.com/features/ http://mailchimp.com/features/). Mailchimp has been known for their transparency (ref: http://blog.mailchimp.com/going-freemium-one-year-later/ http://blog.mailchimp.com/going-freemium-one-year-later/). I hope they share their decision process on this, or metrics on the new design, or both.
- lauterthanbombs 16y ago
  Happy Cog had nothing to do with the redesign. It was completed 100% in-house, and while I'm not exactly sure what DesignLab® has in store, I think you can expect some additional insight into the their thought/design process.
- covercash 16y ago
  It looks like Aaron Robbs is behind the design: http://dribbble.com/shots/108144-Mail-Chimp-Redesign http://dribbble.com/shots/108144-Mail-Chimp-Redesign
subpixel 16y ago
I don't know why companies who aren't selling ads would choose a video platform other than Vimeo or Youtube. But I do know the customer stories look like I'm watching RealPlayer in 1998. And I'm on screamingly fast tubes in the middle of the country. I give the design a thumbs up, FWIW.
bond 16y ago
Don't like it, prefer the old design...
kaib 16y ago
At least I can still get the old site at (note the www): http://www.mailchimp.com http://www.mailchimp.com I think the new site looks even worse when you can compare them tab to tab..
rishi 16y ago
wow! I love it. Looks sleek and elegant. It also doesn't look like everything else on the web. Nice work on the branding.
nhangen 16y ago
Horrible - I don't know how or why, but I feel less likely to recommend the new MC than the old. I felt the old was a good mix between Aweber and Campaign Monitor, now they look exactly like CM, but worse.
jefe78 16y ago
Cool stuff! We've used mailchimp at my old office. Aside from one hiccup that caused our emails to be delayed, we've had a great time setting it up. We had production ready templates in about 20 minutes! Keep up the good work guys!
foobarbazetc 16y ago
Terrible. The design is fine, though uninspired. But what makes this terrible is that it is without soul. Bring back the chimp!
ericb 16y ago
I'm interested in what the rationale behind expanding the free plan is.
js2 16y ago
From 2008, when their current logo was designed by John Hicks - http://blog.mailchimp.com/new-mailchimp-logo-by-jon-hicks/ http://blog.mailchimp.com/new-mailchimp-logo-by-jon-hicks/
Julianhearn 16y ago
The site has certainly lost some of its quirky unique design and feel. It looks more like a thousand other websites now, and seems to copy a lot of 37singals. I do understand they are huge now and so have to appeal to a broad group of people, but overall it does feel a little boring and corporate. It is certainly a safe design that will appeal, but it does appear to have lost some of its brand appeal.

53 points by sgallant 16y ago

You could not have done a worse thing to their previous branding an image, which I thought was pretty damn good in the first place. Nowhere on the homepage does it tell me what MailChimp actually does. The content font is pretty small, and hard to read many of the times. The feature and resource pages are painful to browse. All these artsy images are absolutely unnecessary. Even the guides themselves are actually pdf books you have to download, formatted in artsy ways, making the entire process of searching for help and answers really, really unpleasant. They've sacrificed tons of usability. I'm a bit shocked that they'd do that, personally.

rhizome 16y ago
It could have been intentional. For instance, if they saw themselves being painted into a corner in the future, businesswise, they may want to make a branding break with their past sooner than later. They can always foreground the chimp, the color blue (or whatever) later.

ComputerGuru 16y ago

I liked the old site A LOT better. This one seems slightly amateurish and too artsy. Why a big blue hue on everything? This isn't art class, and we don't need to see their creative side. Show me a cute monkey, show me emails.... Don't drown me in blue! I'm looking at the site on a 1680X1050 display, and I cannot see WHAT the site is about... It did not occur to me to scroll down, because it seems to "end" at the fold, what with the boxes that typically precede the footer being there and all. No one looking at the site will have any clue what MailChimp is or does. Their logo doesn't appear above the fold, the word "email" doesn't even appear above the fold! I don't know what they think they did!

ecaroth 16y ago
Completely agree - the new design of the site doesn't lend itself to mailchimp's "culture" like the old one did. I thought the old site was damn near prefect for what it was!
oneplusone 16y ago
They sacrificed a TON of usability in order to become this artsy. I am not sure why since art has nothing to do with email--especially not business email. The worse example of this is their feature tour. It is actually very painful to read now with way too much space wasted on illustration that contribute nothing. I couldn't find a single screenshot of the app. I sure hope they are split testing this.
- prawn 16y ago
  I think artsy is the wrong word. It's just more muted, pastel and common. As of my check, there is a giant chimp mascot on the front page, so they might have changed that, but the rest just looks like 50% of design shop redesigns from the last 3-4 years. The massive title on the home page is "Still free, just bigger." Still free what? Spell it out for people. I, like almost everyone commenting here, preferred the older design and personally would've run with tweaking that for the next 2-3 years rather than pushing out a redesign for the sake of it.
bobds 16y ago
"DESIGNER TEMPLATES" When I looked at the old website, I knew what service they provided in a few seconds. Now, I'd think they are some kind of design shop.
- kaylarose 16y ago
  Agreed, especially since one of their core markets is non-tech savvy people. Imagine if you've never heard of MailChimp before, and ended up there via Googling "easy newsletter subscriptions". User questions: "What does this do?", "Is it complicated?", and "How much does it cost?". I would venture to say it would be almost and immediate bounce. On the landing page to have to watch a video at the bottom of the page to figure out what MailChimp is...really?!
sambeau 16y ago
"Show me a cute monkey" /pushes a small grey triangle/

mbesto 16y ago

"If ain't broke don't bother fixing it"

wdewind 16y ago

There seems to be a trend in design the last few months (GAP, American Apparel, NBCUniversal the other day) and now MailChimp joins the ranks of people who throw out existing, awesome brands. The monkey is still somewhat present on the page, but this is really a downgrade from the old page. It definitely doesn't look good, and it completely disregards all the brand equity they've built up. It's too bad, because they had a great brand that I really responded to, even though I wasn't even a customer (I just realized I have recommended the service multiple times without even using it).

antidaily 16y ago

I don't mind the design but how about a sentence near the top to new visitors know what MailChimp is. (I see the video further down the page)

paraschopra 16y ago

They should have A/B tested the new design v/s old design. It is so trivial to do that I am amazed why companies take huge risks going with an unproven new design.

JonnieCache 16y ago
Perhaps because they have spent a lot of money on the new design, and the people responsible don't want to invite the possibility of it being revealed as unsuitable? This is not meant as any kind of judgement on anyone at mailchimp. Just thinking aloud.
svnv 16y ago
They do have multiple designs right now, just try to refresh the site. I'm guessing they are keeping track of the conversion rate on each of the designs and will change them once they have enough data points.
- joshuacc 16y ago
  Those don't appear to be multiple designs, but a single design which randomly features different "stories."

khangtoh 16y ago

New site does not appeal to me at ALL.. I like the old site a loooooot more. Why did they lose the Chimp? I don't get that. They literally built their brand around the "Chimp". They've lost their identity (the chimp) ;P

svnv 16y ago

There seems to be multiple designs, try refreshing the site to see some of the other ones. I don't like the new designs, when i first saw the "Designer templates" one I actually had to check the url just to verify that I was still at mailchimp.com and not some generic design tutorial site.

moe 16y ago

They should just silently revert and pretend this never happened.

rhizome 16y ago
You know, they'd get tons of goodwill for something like that.

mceachen 16y ago

The internal site was hit over the head with the pastel bat, too. They should revert their CSS changes -- the prior look was consistent and usable.

patio11 16y ago

I am agnostic on which will work better for the business, but I have an emotional connection with Chimpy. Chimpy is so instantly lovable that my mother can recall, two years later, that my B2B mail service provider is "the one with Chimpy." I have a Chimpy t-shirt that my girlfriend specifically requests I wear. I am not a designer or a brand guy, and I'm willing to be convinced by an A/B test showing Faceless Corporate stomps all over Chimpy... but crkey, I would think long and hard about giving him up.

limedaring 16y ago
I believe I have the same Chimpy tee-shirt (grey AA?) which is one of my favorite teeshirts ever in terms of design and comfort. Such a great mascot, and instantly recognizable as Mailchimp. Are they giving him up for good?
catshirt 16y ago
i too am agnostic. i think they're both great designs. that said, looks like Chimpy is back :)

netmau5 16y ago

Design looks nice, if a little rushed, artistically but completely misses the point of the business.

hkuo 16y ago

Screenshot of previous design for comparison: http://i.imgur.com/aeKr8.jpg http://i.imgur.com/aeKr8.jpg I agree with the general sentiment here. I'm baffled and confused why they made this change. The reason I happened to have a screenshot is because I keep a folder of images of sites I think work exceptionally well. They lost both their usability as well as their humanity. That's a double whammy. I'd love to see a post from them explaining the redesign and any results that may come from this.

flyosity 16y ago
I heard they drastically downplayed their well-known chimp branding and color palette because they'll soon be making a big play into a white-labeled offering which will be totally without branding and customizable. This site redesign is the middle ground to acclimate existing customers to the big change before they roll out the updated app with white-labeling offered.
- hkuo 16y ago
  I'm not sure what the connection is between white-labeling a product and rebranding oneself, if white-labeling is essentially stripping the product of the brand to be replaced by the brand of the customer. Unless it's simply to appeal more to a new set of customers, particularly ad or PR agencies, which is a totally legitimate reason for this rebrand. But even in that light, I prefer the previous site, which instills a no-nonsense level of trust. But this is just my opinion on the brand aspect of the redesign. I think everything else they've changed and added with the site are excellent, particularly the resource section which feels like a library of manuals. The customer stories in video format is a great idea too, though I was confused by the actual videos, which simply did not get to the point of how they related to Mailchimp, at least not as long as I watched before getting bored and stopping the video.
there 16y ago
screenshot of current design: http://i.imgur.com/uhNCCl.jpg http://i.imgur.com/uhNCCl.jpg what am i missing here? i disabled adblock and flashblock. ff4 beta mac.

malbiniak 16y ago

Is it fair to assume that the "Powered by Happy Cog Hosting" implies Happy Cog was behind the redesign? Potentially irrelevant, but curious. Regardless, I agree. This seems like a step back. I'm a huge fan of Mailchimp, their brand (well, to date), and the way they engage their users (aka "support"). Mailchimp is known for their ease of use, but this design doesn't reinforce that, especially the overuse of imagery (ref: http://mailchimp.com/features/ http://mailchimp.com/features/). Mailchimp has been known for their transparency (ref: http://blog.mailchimp.com/going-freemium-one-year-later/ http://blog.mailchimp.com/going-freemium-one-year-later/). I hope they share their decision process on this, or metrics on the new design, or both.

lauterthanbombs 16y ago
Happy Cog had nothing to do with the redesign. It was completed 100% in-house, and while I'm not exactly sure what DesignLab® has in store, I think you can expect some additional insight into the their thought/design process.
covercash 16y ago
It looks like Aaron Robbs is behind the design: http://dribbble.com/shots/108144-Mail-Chimp-Redesign http://dribbble.com/shots/108144-Mail-Chimp-Redesign

subpixel 16y ago

I don't know why companies who aren't selling ads would choose a video platform other than Vimeo or Youtube. But I do know the customer stories look like I'm watching RealPlayer in 1998. And I'm on screamingly fast tubes in the middle of the country. I give the design a thumbs up, FWIW.

bond 16y ago

Don't like it, prefer the old design...

kaib 16y ago

At least I can still get the old site at (note the www): http://www.mailchimp.com http://www.mailchimp.com I think the new site looks even worse when you can compare them tab to tab..

rishi 16y ago

wow! I love it. Looks sleek and elegant. It also doesn't look like everything else on the web. Nice work on the branding.

nhangen 16y ago

Horrible - I don't know how or why, but I feel less likely to recommend the new MC than the old. I felt the old was a good mix between Aweber and Campaign Monitor, now they look exactly like CM, but worse.

jefe78 16y ago

Cool stuff! We've used mailchimp at my old office. Aside from one hiccup that caused our emails to be delayed, we've had a great time setting it up. We had production ready templates in about 20 minutes! Keep up the good work guys!

foobarbazetc 16y ago

Terrible. The design is fine, though uninspired. But what makes this terrible is that it is without soul. Bring back the chimp!

ericb 16y ago

I'm interested in what the rationale behind expanding the free plan is.

js2 16y ago

From 2008, when their current logo was designed by John Hicks - http://blog.mailchimp.com/new-mailchimp-logo-by-jon-hicks/ http://blog.mailchimp.com/new-mailchimp-logo-by-jon-hicks/

Julianhearn 16y ago

The site has certainly lost some of its quirky unique design and feel. It looks more like a thousand other websites now, and seems to copy a lot of 37singals. I do understand they are huge now and so have to appeal to a broad group of people, but overall it does feel a little boring and corporate. It is certainly a safe design that will appeal, but it does appear to have lost some of its brand appeal.