- Hello, everyone.
Welcome back to my channel.
This week, I've got a design news video for you.
I like to make these whenever something big happens
on the internet that gets a lot of designers talking,
so that I can give you an update
and also share my thoughts on the topic at hand as well.
So earlier on this week,
Dropbox, which you probably know
as the Cloud file storage company.
They released a rebrand, and boy,
did the internet react to it.
(upbeat music)
The old Dropbox brand was very clean,
it was mainly white and blue,
the colors that spring to mind,
and they also did a really good job
with little illustrations to bring some character
and some personality to things like error messages.
They're all about syncing your files,
keeping them secure,
so their brand projecting this idea of safety,
of security, and also simplicity,
you know, the app being really easy to use.
And in contrast to that,
this is the new brand they released.
With this new brand,
this new focus,
they seem to be going all in on the creative niche.
I bet that they would have done a bunch
of market user research
and discovered that a lot of designers
and other creative types were people
who were using their product because let's be honest,
us creative types are the ones who have big files
that don't fit on our computers,
so we need some sort of Cloud storage solution, right?
So they've picked this niche
and gone all in on it,
and this idea of creative energy.
If we put these two brands next to each other,
we can see that they look and feel
very, very different from each other,
and just to start off,
I want to point out that this is a really good example
of how a brand is so much more than a logo.
They have updated the logo.
They said that it's more about surfaces now
than it is about being a literal box,
but let's be honest.
It still pretty much looks like a box.
But because a brand is much more than just a logo,
they've changed pretty much everything else around that logo
which makes for a very very different feeling brand.
Let's have into it, and take a closer look
at the pieces that make up this brand
that they've represented on their Dropbox.design page,
and I'll share my thoughts on it.
The first thing that stood out to me
when I looked at this page was the colors,
and how different they were
from the clean white light backgrounds,
and blue and green highlight colors
that the old Dropbox brand used.
These feel very very different.
It's not like a color palette,
where everything feels very connected and cohesive.
It does feel a little bit chaotic,
let's be honest.
Some of these color formations,
I don't I would have ever
thought or you know,
would want to put together,
like this forest green and salmon pink,
for example, it's not to my taste.
But do you know what?
I like that they've tried something new.
I don't particularly love all of these colors,
but I love what they're doing with them.
I love the idea behind it.
It's kind of a running joke
in the tech world that every tech company
is blue, like has a blue logo,
because blue means security,
blue means safety, so we're kinda getting to a point
where many tech companies websites
are looking very similar,
because they're all using white backgrounds
with blue as the accent color.
So in thinking about that,
I like that Dropbox have gone a different route,
because they were this company
that had the white background
and the blue as the accent color.
I like that they're trying something new
and bringing something different
to this world of tech design,
which can get very same-y.
So the only thing I don't quite know
if I can get on board with
is this typeface.
It feels very '90s, like quite postmodern or something,
this sort of extended letter forms and very rounded,
and this bit here in particular,
the Today we're announcing the biggest change,
it kind of looks like the text is being compressed,
like it's being flattened or something, I don't know.
I don't love it,
and I don't think it's particularly easy to read,
especially when it gets close together like that.
They say that they chose this
because it has so many fonts within it,
and it allows them to speak in a variety of tones,
but I kind of feel like a brand
should always be speaking in the same tone,
or at least the same range of tones.
Maybe not 259 different tones.
The last piece of the brand puzzle
they mentioned on this landing page
is the illustration style.
Now Dropbox has always been famous for its illustration,
and they've paid close attention to it
and put the effort in,
so I do like that they're sticking with the attention
that they give to that,
because that is quite a unique part of the old brand.
So individually, each of these things,
very interesting on their own,
but the way they've combined them
is particularly unique,
and not something that we really expect to see,
this many colors on a webpage, for example.
I think that this unexpectedness of it all
is what created this pretty extreme reaction online,
if I'm being honest.
There was tweets asking if it was a joke,
saying it was an insult to design,
saying that it was overwhelming and offending their eyes.
And while these color combinations
and the typeface in particular
may not be to my personal taste,
I really don't like way that I saw
a lot of designers reacting to this,
because what we have to remember
is that there were people who created this, right?
It could have been people like you and me,
making this thing.
Imagine seeing, like posting your work online,
releasing something new, and seeing that reaction to it.
Yes, I understand that we should all have a thick skin,
and that design is subjective,
not everyone's gonna like it,
but come on, some of those reactions are pretty mean.
The only valid critique that I saw,
and that I agree with
is that this new design seems to focus
more on being hip and cool
than it does on being smart and safe.
However, I think a lot of what people
who are reacting negatively to this are forgetting
is that you're seeing this
as the brand for Dropbox as we know it now,
whereas, actually, it's the brand for Dropbox
as they're gonna be in the future going forward.
There's been landing pages pop up
that advertise a presentation tool,
that advertise a design tool,
they're pretty vague
and there's no screenshots of the tools themselves,
and then at the end,
they tell you what they're thinking of charging for this,
and you can sign up to be notified if it becomes available,
so that's really interesting.
It seems like they're trying to gauge people's interest
in these sorts of things.
Overall, this all feels very new,
and like a fresh start for Dropbox,
which I guess is kind of what they're going for,
if they're wanting to be seen differently
in people's minds as more than just Cloud storage.
However, I think they're going to struggle
to keep the brand equity, I think is the right word for it,
they've built up over time as being this safe,
easy to use place to keep your files,
and applying that to this new rebrand.
I don't know if the two really connect very well.
They have said in regards to their colors
that it's something they can dial up
to provoke and inspire creative energy,
but then in their product,
where people need to concentrate on their work,
we can dial it down.
So essentially, if you look at their product,
and I don't know if this where it's gonna end up,
or if there's more changes to come,
but inside the product looks pretty much the same.
And that makes it feel very different in tone
from the new brand.
And while that reasonably makes sense,
like yes, I don't wanna see all these different colors
within the app, that might get confusing,
however, I really don't understand that decision
from a brand building perspective.
Like, in my mind, Dropbox,
this redesign that I'm seeing is separate
from the Dropbox that I use on a day to day basis.
I am excited to see where this goes, though,
and I'm sorry if you clicked on this video
expecting to see me like going on about
how much I hate the new design or anything like that,
but I honestly don't hate it.
Like I said, there's parts of it
that are not to my taste,
and they're not what I would have done,
but I love that they're bringing something fresh
into the world of tech,
and I hope that they can pull it off.
I hope that this can be applied to landing pages
in a way that projects the feeling of security
as well as the creative energy,
because both of those things are important
when it comes to Dropbox.
And I guess we'll all just have to wait and see for that,
to see what they do with it.
So, thank you for watching this video.
I hope you enjoyed the update.
I definitely wanna hear your thoughts.
Remember what I said about being mean?
Let's not be mean in the comments.
Let's be constructive.
Too many of the tweets that I saw
were just gut, you know, emotional reactions
rather than a proper design critique.
So let's try to have a proper design critique
down below in the comments.
Let me know your thoughts.
If you enjoyed this video as well,
and wanna see more design news videos,
then make sure you give this one a thumbs up,
and hit that subscribe button as well,
so that we can stay in touch.
All right.
Thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time.
Bye.
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