
JetBrains redesigned their website and logos - javinpaul
https://www.jetbrains.com/
======
partisan
I like JetBrains and their products. I am glad they exist.

My take: The site is not really appropriate given that their supposed target
demographic is developers who are quick to cut through marketing BS and skip
to the details. All the flash and distraction leads me to...

My guess: They will be selling the company in the next year or so and are
adding (perceived) value for the prospective buyers. Just from my past
experience.

~~~
binthere
I won't be surprised if Google buys them.

~~~
jjholly
I will be. Acquiring a software development company like JetBrains would
provide absolutely no value to Google, and would go completely against their
new corporate structure.

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lindig
It took long enough for the home page to load that I wondered whether it is
broken. That's not a good message for a company that makes software tools.
From a perspective of graphic design and branding it is pretty busy. As an
immediate fix I'd use all logos from clients only in black and white and
reserve the use of color for my own message. The generous use of gradients in
logos creates an already dated look.

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gk1
Geez, tough crowd.

I'll play devil's advocate:

_You_, the engineer, may think design is useless and the old one worked just
fine. But _you_ are not the only one JetBrains sells to: They're also selling
to the managers and executives who make buying decisions at "big" companies --
ie, the kind of companies where a six-figure software deal must go through
countless evaluations.

As ridiculous as it sounds, the design of a software company's marketing site
affects the impression a buyer will have of that company. A site that looks
like it hasn't been updated in years can make someone think the software
itself is outdated, or the company is slow-moving, or the company isn't
growing anymore. If you're the CEO, CMO, or head of sales at JetBrains (or any
other software co), that is NOT what you want people to think of you.

See also [http://splunk.com](http://splunk.com),
[http://newrelic.com](http://newrelic.com),
[http://appdynamics.com](http://appdynamics.com), etc. They're not so stupid
to be spending money on redesigns if it didn't help with sales and growth.

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Grue3
The loading time is _too damn high_. For the longest time it just showed me
black screen. I didn't remember what their old logo looked like, so I looked
it up and it was pretty bad, like a shareware software logo from the 90s. The
new one is much better. Also, I'm disappointed that their CLion software
(abbreviated as CL) has nothing to do with Common Lisp.

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dec0dedab0de
I have no opinion on the logos, but what's up with that intro? is this 2001?

~~~
sanderjd
While I think it's a strange choice, it only does that on your first page
load, and I suspect that it is a temporary "new branding roll-out" type thing.

~~~
e12e
First load per browser/session. At least there's no intro in w3m (actually a
bit sad about that, seems like a missed opportunity).

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keehun
I like the new website, but the logo screams the old Zune logo[0], especially
when it's animated in the intro feature.

[0]:
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Zune_log...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Zune_logo_and_wordmark.svg)

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beachwood23
Not a fan of the weird "intro". Just show me the content I came for. I don't
have an opinion on the new logo, but I definitely think they should have put
more work in making this redesign easier to navigate and more readable. It
looks like it was a redesign for the sake of a redesign. What problem was this
trying to solve?

~~~
Someone1234
> What problem was this trying to solve?

The usability on the old site was too high, developers loved it but management
were confused by the directness and lack of bullshit.

So they redesigned it for sales, and away from their core demographic.

PS - Google should really penalise sites that operate intros.

~~~
sgdread
I liked old site: it was warm and fuzzy.

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Alupis
> Type `man cookies' to learn more or `exit' to close.

>

> ~ root$

Really gives the site an "over-engineered just for funsies" look and feel. Why
not just a link and be done with it? While cool the first time, it's just
clutter that adds nothing of value to the site.

For a company that focuses on products that "just work, and work well" this
website is giving off the wrong impression.

~~~
mikeash
Fun has value.

~~~
abledon
im laughing that this is a downvoted sentiment on hackernews

~~~
mikeash
Me too!

One interesting thing I've noticed is that my comments like this often get
downvoted to -1 or -2, then go back up. It happened for this one. I wonder why
that is. Are grumpy people more likely to get in early?

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jcadam
Hate it. Besides being kind of gaudy, it's simply less readable than the old
site. Instead of having all of the product information neatly laid out in
easily readable columns, I now have to scroll constantly.

I mean, I know it's the current design fad, but I wish it would stop.

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frik

      Sorry, your browser is not fully supported
    
      There may be some issues with pages layout in your 
      current browser. 
      Please use an alternate browser until we resolve the issues. 
      Thank you.
    

and no way to skip - it's fullscreen, I see no website.

~~~
conorgil145
Which browser are you using?

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sethd
I can't help but mentioning that their logo does not load without allowing
JavaScript (NoScript user here).

Have we really reached the point where JavaScript is required to display a
logo on a website?

~~~
LesZedCB
Yes.[1] The rest of the internet has been there for a while now. Many high
quality web applications utilize javascript frameworks to render the majority
of the page. If you use NoScript today, you should be able to reasonably
expect most of the web to be broken and not lament it.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_JavaScript_libraries#W...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_JavaScript_libraries#Web-
application_related_.28MVC.2C_MVVM.29)

~~~
sethd
Actually most of the page does load with JS disabled with exception of their
logo.

> "The rest of the internet has been there for a while now."

This is not my experience at all. Most of the sites I use, especially
text/image content-driven websites, load fine without JS and it saves me from
having to deal with a lot of annoying UX issues.

In fact, in this case I was able to avoid having to suffer through the intro
JetBrains decided to show visitors on this website, until just out of
curiosity I decided to enable JS to see if their logo would render.

I am well aware that some web applications use JavaScript frameworks but even
then it's possible to render content for SEO and other purposes where JS might
not be enabled. Certainly the logo can and should be rendered without JS even
in these cases.

I would imagine that web applications implemented in a JavaScript framework
are a minority as should be the case. The vast majority of websites simply
display text and images and there is no sane reason to require JS just to view
text and image content.

~~~
Alupis
> there is no sane reason to require JS just to view text and image content

Especially for a logo.

Coupled with the intro video, it feels like we're back in the early 2000's
where flash intros to every site ruled the web.

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talles
The website looks great, but what's with that stupid intro?

Neither informs nor amuses the user. It's just (beautiful) clutter.

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aridiculous
I'm going to put in the lonely voice of support for the new design.

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jinushaun
Wow. An intro animation. What is this? 1999?

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kuanbutts
Looks like a bunch of the bloomberg.com designers broke out of their NY
offices and took over Jet Brains'... Could this mean 90's gradients are making
a comeback? I hope not, for the sake of my eyes.

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Alupis
It's not a responsive design, and they don't redirect to a mobile friendly
version. Granted, most visitors are likely to be on a desktop or laptop, but
why go through all this trouble to redesign your entire site (and company?),
but stick to old design methods not catered towards the "modern" web?

~~~
gorohoroh
If you look at the underlying markup, you can see that the web site was
designed to be responsive. The sad part however is that it's going to take a
bit more time for mobile resolutions to be supported properly.

~~~
Alupis
I tried it using Chrome Dev Tools and emulated several mobile devices (some
apple, some android, etc...) and even after a refresh and dumping cache, it
did not go into responsive mode. It only gets smaller so the entire page fits
on-screen for the mobile.

This has nothing to do with supporting mobile resolutions. The site just
doesn't do responsive... at all.

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gruez
I don't like it. The icons are way to abstract compared to the old ones.

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kevindeasis
The first 3 seconds made me tell myself this UI/UX is annoying. After the
remaining seconds, I was like "Dayummmm, that is sick"

They do need to work on the responsiveness of that site.

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ostyn
Hmmm... I would like it if Adobe hadn't already taken that "periodic element"
icon style. But even then, the older icons were far more clear.

~~~
thecrumb
My first initial thought was this looks a lot like Adobe.

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LifeQuestioner
Jesus fuck this completely overloads my brain. Especially when opening the
menu's to look at the IDE's...all those mash of colours my brain can't order
the information...

Did Jetbrains not consider Gestalt rules when designing this? Their design
completely messes with this in my head and I hypothesise that's why I can't
order information.

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jazzyk
I use IDEA and still think it is one of the best pieces of software I have
ever used.

That said, the new branding is...troubling. Aesthetics is a matter of taste,
over-engineering and fuss are not. KISS never goes out of style.

It is troubling, because it may hint at suits taking over. I hope I am wrong.

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drinchev
JetBrains did something really cool. I'm second year paying user of WebStorm &
PHPStorm. Totally rocks.

But ...

Last company I worked for I also used IntelliJ IDEA. And it's pretty obvious
that IDEA is their main-focused project, which is superior than the others.
For example WebStorm still doesn't have nice TypeScript support ( 1.7 is not
supported and overall typescript seems to be buggy ).

Also they should've probably spend more time and "rebrand" their UI ... I'm
sick of dracula and default themes. Atom is a masterpiece on design nowadays.

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modernerd
I love JetBrains, and this new branding is sharp.

There's still a perception in some communities that IDEs are clunky things for
old-timers. The new branding helps to lift that image. I think it will appeal
to those who've never considered an IDE.

It's also a welcome refresh for any PhpStorm users like me who've always felt
a little short-changed with the old logo – it used to feel awkward in the
dock, particularly compared with the other JetBrains IDEs.

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sanderjd
I quite like the new branding. It's bright and creative, stands out from the
minimalism currently in vogue, and gives them lots of leeway for designing
distinctive logos for different products that still reference the overall
brand.

I think the splash page is a strange choice though, and I don't see why they
wouldn't have a static svg fallback of the logo.

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playing_colours
First they changed their price options, now this redesign... I wonder if it's
a business equivalent of "jumping the shark"
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark)
?

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Kiro
I like it and I like the intro.

~~~
Kiro
Getting downvoted for this? Sometimes the negativity on here is just too much.

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vankap
Not a big fan of all the marketing language on the home page. But it does get
better on the individual IDE pages. You see the download link right away and
you can scroll down if you need more info.

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jjwdowik
The intro doesn't even work on mobile and is just a black screen...have to hit
the x to get out, and it's not even mobile optimized...

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LoneWolf
Am I the only one to think that the new icons look like a bit of a console,
the line below is the cursor and the letters the product initials.

~~~
gorohoroh
You're not.

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subsection1h
I have video disabled in my browser because I'm a reader, and all I saw was
"LOADING..." and a close button.

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corv
The new site does communicate more clearly: we're the Adobe of the IDE world.

Pay annually? No thanks.

~~~
humanfromearth
I agree that we're Adobe of the IDE world is crap.

But is it really 100$ so expensive for an average developer? Consider how much
money you're making because you have these tools.

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anilyeni
i liked the cookie warning. i am just visiting jetbrains to download ide. i
don't know whom for they had created those web agency style web site, but i
don't care while their download button is working.

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yborg
The InteliJ 15 loading splash is hideous, and looks like it was designed by a
12 year old or someone who couldn't be bothered to spend more than 5 minutes
on it. JetBrains obviously doesn't have a designer on staff.

~~~
Nullabillity
At least it doesn't hurt my eyes like the IJ 13 splash screen:
[http://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/files/2013/12/splash13-1.png](http://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/files/2013/12/splash13-1.png)

