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Comment by tehsauce | Hacker News Reader

Taking a moment here to ponder the design of the webpage. If that style was the result of an amateur at an unsexy company, I'd imagine this would be considered "ugly" or "uninspired". Knowing its the product of a hip young company however one might label it "bold" or even "innovative". Reminds me of fashion, where the only difference between a person wearing goofy clothes and a model is everything besides the clothes themselves.

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> If that style was the result of an amateur at an unsexy company, I'd imagine this would be considered "ugly" or "uninspired". Knowing its the product of a hip young company however one might label it "bold" or even "innovative".

Yes art and design needs to be evaluated in the context of the creator and the time. I don’t think that’s an unusual idea or that it shows anything up.

It feels if though they went for the YC/HN minimalism thing but executed poorly. A dark/black background can be pleasing to the eye, but combined with the yellow and hard white texts it's almost unbearably hard to digest. When I clicked to the application form, the white input boxes blinded me to the point where I had to close the tab almost immediately.

at least it's responsive!

When did this trend start, this monoculture of design? It seems that nowadays, content and function aren't even important--what's important is getting the right filter, portraying the right "vibe," and using vapid, trendy, copywriting. I write this as someone who's obsessed with design, but who kind of hates myself for it. It seems like people around the world are designing defensively--insecure with themselves and making everything as Squarespace/Stripe lookalikes, to the point where if one does something different, it's considered ugly/bold.

It seems very reminiscent of dropbox's new design. It's tough for me to call it amateur - the information hierarchy is clear, the text is legible and the layout isn't confusing.

https://dropbox.design/

I can't speak to the amateur-ness of the design itself, but I can speak to the fact that my eyes started to hurt trying to read the site itself. I don't think the color scheme and 'black-space' is helping legibility, at least for me.

Yap... but then again: the design is making you talk about the page, me replying to your comment etc. I don’t think it’s so bad. It serve another purpose than you think I believe

Good point. In this case it's probably a calculated style though (with the dynamic you described taken into account), and not actually made by an amateur.

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