Google’s look, evolved • Hacker News Board

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#61

Post by fluidcruft » Tue, Sep 01, 2015, 4:27 PM UTC

speik wrote: post #21

roymurdock wrote: post #10

Just when I thought we might be starting to pivot away from flat design - does anyone know of a different design paradigm that is being used by smaller/fringe designers who are tired of flat/minimal UX/UI?

Just curious, why did you think there was a pivot away from flat design? I'm also interested in learning about some alternative designs though.

In my experience "flat design" seems to have become synonymous with hidden and undiscoverable. Metro and Material were/are horrible in this respect (I don't use iOS so I don't know how Apple's version fares in that regard).

My experience is that it seems to be based on the philosophy of "just touch things to learn what they do" but then you're constantly punished with "oh, you touched something so things changed". It's a minefield.

It's not particularly the "flat" design that's at fault here, but it's lumped with this simultaneous trend of feature deletion and cryptoUI.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#62

Post by kenbellows » Tue, Sep 01, 2015, 4:27 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #37

Hmm... the spacing between the letters in "Goo" seems optically wider than the spacing between "gle". But it might be just me.

Ironically, the "Goo" spacing is actually about 25% narrower that that between the "gle" characters

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#63

Post by ben1040 » Tue, Sep 01, 2015, 4:28 PM UTC

mahouse wrote: post #51

shaftway wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They still are in the new logo. They're perfect circles, but they've been rotated to the exact same angle as the old "o"s.

how do you rotate a perfect circle

that's... the joke.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#64

Post by ocdtrekkie » Tue, Sep 01, 2015, 4:29 PM UTC

phasmantistes wrote: post #57

waterlesscloud wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's design. It'll change even when it doesn't need to, almost by definition.

Wow, that's an uncharitable opinion of design and designers. They're highly-trained professionals too, and redesigns like this aren't done just for the heck of it -- according to the blog post, this measurably increases performance on small screens and in low-bandwidth contexts.

Being able to do everything with SVGs is admittedly nice. But if Google was worried about performance on small screens and in low-bandwidth contexts, we wouldn't have Material design, as it's animations have quite a bloated effect on performance. Particularly on devices with low power/low processing. Page loads on desktops for some Google sites are up to ten seconds now.

But yes, most redesigns are done just for the heck of it. I have a pretty uncharitable opinion of design and designers too, if only because very few Silicon Valley designers seem to have any idea how the users experience (and hate) their work. (I remember back when I heard about Google doing heavy testing with normal users before making changes, and it's very clear that that stopped when Duarte stepped in.)

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#65

Post by galago » Tue, Sep 01, 2015, 4:29 PM UTC

I feel like we-don't-care-about-design is kind of Googles thing. The new logo seems terrible, but that's appropriate. It could be a picture of pretty much anything, or there could be no logo. Regardless, I plan to continue using Google to search the WWW.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#66

Post by Aissen » Tue, Sep 01, 2015, 4:29 PM UTC

It seems they didn't update http://www.google.com/press/images.html yet, but the doodle is available here: https://www.google.com/doodles/googles-new-logo

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#67

Post by ilovecomputers » Tue, Sep 01, 2015, 4:30 PM UTC

raldi wrote: post #31

mahouse wrote: post #20

I'll be the first one to say it: I liked the older better. There was literally nothing wrong with it, it did not look dated at all.

We've been using the new logo internally for a week. Give it a day, and then go back and look at the old logo, and then tell me how dated it looks.

My series of responses within the span of 30 minutes:

* "It looks like fridge magnets for kids! I don't like it; the iconic lower case g is gone cause of designers obsession of san-serif == modern."

* "Glad that they continue to embrace their playful culture tho."

* "You know what, it's growing on me."

* "Haha, they tilted the e, how cute. Oh god what is happening to me!?"

* "Geeze, how old is Google books? They haven't even updated the logo!"

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#68

Post by ihuman » Tue, Sep 01, 2015, 4:30 PM UTC

spankalee wrote: post #19

roymurdock wrote: post #10

Just when I thought we might be starting to pivot away from flat design - does anyone know of a different design paradigm that is being used by smaller/fringe designers who are tired of flat/minimal UX/UI?

Throwback 90's? I'm so glad we're mostly rid of useless ornamentation: endless bevels, drop-shadows, gradients, and skeuomorphism... There are many different takes on flat design, so it's not a design mono-culture. Google, Microsoft and Apple all have unique, flat, design languages.

What's wrong with gradients when used in a non-skeuomorphic way?

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#69

Post by kanche » Tue, Sep 01, 2015, 4:31 PM UTC

It feels kiddish and playful (in a positive way)!

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#70

Post by branchless » Tue, Sep 01, 2015, 4:31 PM UTC

ErikHuisman wrote: post #56

mentos wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the attention they brought to the angle/attitude of the 'e'. Never appreciated before how it has a friendlier feel.

It is pioneered by Alfred Heineken in 1954 to cheer up the brand Heineken.

I think these things might make a small difference but overall it's not important.

I view Heineken as a boring lager which has little character, probably due to being produced in industrial quantities. A jaunty 'e' isn't going to fix that.

Same for google. So long as they continue to bang out appropriate search results I'm with them. Right until they don't.