Designing a New Look for Instagram, Inspired by the Community | Hacker News Reader

Designing a New Look for Instagram, Inspired by the Community

medium.com

42 pointsaxg25 comments

Their old logo was iconic (pun intended). It harkened back to the polaroid days, probably one of the best uses of skeuomorphism. People had fun with the old logo because it was tangible; a real camera, "I know what a camera is!".

The new logo is generic and bland, completely indistinctive. It looks like something I would pull out of glyphicons from bootstrap or font-awesome. And now all my previous clients with Instagram logos on their sites are going to call me up and ask me to change it to the new one.

And the new layout... tiles? Great, you look like every other photo app ever.

What drove this change? Because to me it looks like some designers and engineers were bored and decided a change was necessary " just because".

Couldn't agree more.

>But the Instagram icon and design was beginning to feel, well… not reflective of the community

What does this even mean in Instagram's context?

Instagram used to be about interesting photography, but its biggest users are now rich assholes, bragging about their lavish lifestyles.

So maybe that's what they mean? The community used to be about photography, but now it's shifted to vapid celebrity worship, so they needed an equally vapid brand to match.

It's a feed based social media app. You dictate exactly what it shows you by who you follow. I curate my feed to be almost exclusively interesting photography. You can too.

Edit for a little more substance: /r/photography's monthly Instagram follower thread is a great place to find up and coming photographers to follow.

https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/4idumi/officia...

Brutally true.

I definitely agree that their designers and engineers needed some busy work.

I wonder if they are actually ab testing this stuff or just rolling it out because "community".

I have complained about the instagram logo for years, but now I'm eating that. This icon is meaningless and will stick out like even more of a sore thumb.

What was your issue with the old logo?

1. I never liked skeuomorphic icons, so I'm biased. I'm not a flat fanatic, but it definitely goes way past the sensible middle ground for me.

2. It's just so out of place with everything else on my phone (android). It gets my attention every time I open the app drawer, and I mean that in a bad way.

You can learn more about the reasoning and process behind the new design here: https://medium.com/@ianspalter/designing-a-new-look-for-inst...

I'm less concerned about the logo than the app redesign. Sure, the logo seems to be vying for attention, but it's understandable given how connected time-in-app is to ad revenue. I'm not expert but I think simply flattening the logo would have better preserved brand identity.

With the app redesign, why were the messages not moved to the bottom of the screen like all the other icons? The new layout also looks more conducive to Facebook's "newsfeed" approach--I realize they'll no longer be showing photos in chronological order, but that's part of what was so useful about the application! I could hop on after being in the wilderness for a week and see what my friends have been up to! Is it really impossible to monetize without using an algorithm to "optimize" what to show users?

I still think the main missing feature is the ability to group the people you follow. Why can't I have categories like "Nature", "Friends and Family", "Furniture", "Local Artists", etc.

I'd be so happy if I could just generate a RSS feed based on a list of usernames.

This logo screams fear of Snapchat to me.

Bold gaudyness has always been Snapchats brand touchpoint, this is what made it feel edgy and interesting. Instagram was always a twee retro appeal reminiscent of polaroid cameras.

This change feels completely at odds with what their brand is and looks utterly ridiculous next to the type logo which is still written in that kitsch font that reminds me of 50s Americana.

This is going too far too late and I wouldn't be shocked at all if within 3 months it's rebranded again.

I always thought the rainbow was a nod to the One Step version of Polaroid's SX-70. It had a little rainbow strip that came down from the lens. Now its a gradient? Meh.

Also looks like we're going back to extreme rounded corners again? Square is out? Heh.

On a positive note, I do like the white and grey tone of the app itself. Cleaner and more relaxing than the blue/black tones.

I think the trouble with it is that the picture headers are given the same weight as comments. Before you could have a clear and obvious separation of sections. Now not so much. It's just all white.

New icon redesign process : https://gfycat.com/OblongRigidGhostshrimp

Credits : https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/4iv1om/instagram_r...

I really hate the new look. Maybe I'll get used to it over time but right now it seems make a major step backwards.

I just wanted to compare Instagram vs Snapchat and got this (I know Google Trends cannot be used for popularity because of mobile apps but just to get some vague tendency):

https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=snapchat%2C%20instag...

So, Instagram is still way bigger but we some slow down when it comes to growth but everything is still good.

Then, I just added Facebook to the game and look what I got:

https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=snapchat%2C%20instag...

Facebook is huge but I guess it's primarily because people search for it on desktop instead of typing the .com-domain. But what hit me more and it's OT here: how Facebook is dropping, this doesn't look good.

Oh god, what is with wretched gradients? OS X has become an angry fruit salad, and now this. Fortunately I've never seen the appeal of Instagram, and uBlock Origin does a great job of making sure I never see social media buttons, so this will hopefully be the first and last time I have to look at it, but really: WTF were they thinking?

This new icon honestly looks like it was made in 10 minutes by a designer on Fiverr.

I find OS X to look ages better than iOS. Their colors are softer and the design has far more detail.

http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_icon...

Well that's a mistake.

I think that people just need some time to accept this big change. The old logo was totally old fashion.

Not pleasant to look at. Not sure why

hmm, maybe fb wants to kill instagram?

rather than just pull the plug, they can test to see what happens when you introduce a horrible icon. What affect does that have on usage?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com