Just this week, Dropbox announced their redesign of the logo and web. It’s the service second overhaul to date, after the alteration of the condensed wordmark in 2015.
As one of the biggest file hosting services out there, Dropbox enables you to flexibly store and share your files anytime and anywhere – it’s simple and accessible, and that’s good enough. But now Dropbox wants to take it a little bit further.
In the announcement post, the company noted: “Dropbox isn’t only a place to store your files. We’re a living workspace where people and ideas come together.”
The overhaul showcases a whole new different Dropbox with the new typeface, bright color palette, and illustrations. The new logo also introduces a flatter box alongside a slightly revamped wordmark that now comes in black. It is a big leap from the simple blue and white corporate visual identity.
But the idea of bringing people from diverse backgrounds, including creatives, in an all-round file storage platform doesn’t seem to please the crowd. Particularly when seeing this blog post.
Cackling.
🤢
Did you resurrect Andy Warhol and gave him photoshop?— Manawyrm (@Manawyrm) October 3, 2017
Exactly the point.
“Our new brand system shows that Dropbox isn’t just a place to store your files.”
But I want it to be just a place to store my files.— Benny Har-Even (@the_blagmeister) October 4, 2017
First thing first, it wasn’t a bad move at all. We can see that the previous brand identity was the biggest barrier for the service to appeal to a wider range of audience. Now with a more playful user interface, Dropbox is definitely friendlier than ever. The illustrations and the new typeface help a lot to so achieve.
The logo is also far more fitting than the old one – clean and simplified, we appreciate it – but that’s as far as it goes. The color combinations? Totally an eyesore. It looks like Dropbox is trying too hard to think out of box with all these modern design ideas crammed into one space. A lot is going on in this headache-inducing array of colors, so that’s a letdown.
While the new update is going to be a little bit chaotic (and it’s going to roll out in just a few months so be prepared), we don’t see anything wrong with the current web. It is still as functional as ever. Don’t be bothered too much about this major change.
In sum up, the new update perhaps is a little bit over the top, but we’re still optimistic that it’s just a phase. It’s either going to be really impressive or it’s going to be a great mess. We’ll see.