
Evolving the Dropbox Brand - tanoku
https://dropbox.design/
======
mugsie
Wow. that is (from my perspective - but only mine) terrible.

Janky scrolling, things flying around, random animations that don't finish
before you scroll past them.

The left / right alternate scroll is .... unsettling.

~~~
tree_of_item
I thought something was wrong with my browser because it wouldn't scroll. How
does a company with this much money fail so hard at web design?

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rodw
I get the metaphor and all, but I found this statement to be pretty over-the-
top:

> Our old logo was a blue box that implied, “Dropbox is a great place to store
> stuff.” The new one is cleaner and simpler. And we’ve evolved it from a
> literal box, to a collection of surfaces to show that Dropbox is an open
> platform, and a place for creation.

Maybe this is just an intermediate step in an attempt to preserve some brand
continuity, and something more radically different is coming later, but the
new logo sure looks a lot like a blue box to me. I literally didn't realize
the logo next to this text was the new logo, I kept scrolling down looking for
something that wasn't clearly a box.

I actually agree that the new logo is an improvement -- it really is "cleaner
and simpler" \-- but I think it is ridiculous to look at that new logo as
anything more than (or other than) a stylized box.

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roymurdock
Not sure I understand the strategy here, was under the impression that Dropbox
wanted to move further into the enterprise (read:lucrative) space which would
favor a constant, subtle, and functional "boring" scheme.

This seems like a tear in the opposite direction and I'm not sure which target
user/market it was designed to appeal to. Maybe it's just a refresh to try and
stay top-of-mind in the face of competition from Google, Microsoft, and Box.

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supernintendo
This is the worst UX I've seen in a long time. Not only that, it's visually
garish. Apparently the designers at Dropbox have never heard of color theory.

~~~
valine
My initial impression was they were intentionally breaking color theory rules,
maybe as a way to stand out. It gives off a trendy, hipster vibe. I can't
imagine this aesthetic aging well.

~~~
empath75
it gives me a 'geocities' vibe.

~~~
ryandrake
It give me a "I just discovered LSD" vibe.

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blocke
My response to this site as someone who has had a paid Dropbox account for
years:

Oh no. Oh... no. _follow link to dropbox.com_ Ugh. What happened?

I'm now under the impression Dropbox will go out of business and I need to
explore alternatives.

Edit: I think I identified what makes me intensely dislike it. The color
scheme and design screams "This is no longer for you, it's for hipsters."

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cupofjoakim
I see what they wanted to do, but I think they misjudged their users. The non
design oriented people using this will probably think that this is horrible -
which it is (for this purpose). This kind of playful and color heavy design
isn't new or bad, it's just that it has a really hard time breaking out of the
art/design magazine area. It's impractical, forces the user to look extra
hard, uses non-traditional color combinations with weird contrasts. Whoever
greenlit this made a mistake.

~~~
gk1
We don't know how the UI will look, which is what matters. Of course the
design announcement will be over-designed.

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chrissnell
That typeface is just dreadful. Dropbox is a utilitarian business product, not
a mid-century art exhibit.

~~~
cookiecaper
Yeah, the text is really weird, I had a hard time reading any of it. The
letters just seem too wide, out of proportion. I almost wonder if I have an
extension blocking some adaptive-text-resizing script or something, because it
doesn't seem like they'd actually want it to look that way...

------
x775
They have posted some additional information on their blog:
[https://blogs.dropbox.com/dropbox/2017/10/creative-energy-
ke...](https://blogs.dropbox.com/dropbox/2017/10/creative-energy-keep-it-
flowing/)

You can see the new frontpage here:
[https://www.dropbox.com/allyours](https://www.dropbox.com/allyours)

~~~
ivm
> That’s why today we’re excited to tell...

I always perceive words like "excited" in PR statements as corporate
narcissism. This kind of language shows that they have become too self-
absorbed, the new unfitting design is just another symptom of it.

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underyx
Seems very similar to Spotify's recent-ish rebranding. Which makes sense as
the same agency appears to have worked on it
[https://www.wearecollins.com/work/spotify/](https://www.wearecollins.com/work/spotify/)

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ferdbold
Wow, that scrolling is a trainwreck

~~~
kylec
Yup. This is what it looks like in Safari:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYPWaKHmAhE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYPWaKHmAhE)

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Veratyr
This reminds me of the time I watched the video about Uber's new logo:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx1-im6i8uk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx1-im6i8uk)

Seriously, who comes up with this stuff? It feels like a bad joke.

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gk1
Everyone is dumping on this, but I, for one, applaud their daring to try
something that doesn't look like every other SaaS brand out there. (And
besides, Box.com already beat them to that.)

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laurentdc
It's probably totally subjective but I find the typeface needlessly "wide" and
the colour palette unpleasant - especially that dark red and cyan combination
in the new homepage [1]. It has some sort of retro Microsoft Frontpage '97
vibe.

[1] [https://i.imgur.com/rcZxsLs.png](https://i.imgur.com/rcZxsLs.png)

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Ezhik
It's like they switched from RGB to HSB colors without actually changing any
of the values.

Also, [do unnecessary scrolling tricks justify _requiring_
JavaScript?]([https://i.imgur.com/9mVzkaY.png](https://i.imgur.com/9mVzkaY.png))

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kylec
Let's hope this brand evolution is better engineered than the web page that's
announcing it. The scrolling is appalling
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYPWaKHmAhE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYPWaKHmAhE)

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jdlyga
Looks stylish and artistic. Not exactly what I usually think of when I think
of Dropbox. I use them mostly cause they're the most reliable cloud storage
method I've tried. But looks nice to me.

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timkeller
This is just so sad. I've used, paid for, and loved Dropbox for years and
years. It is really worrying that anyone in the company felt it was OK to
launch this rebrand.

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bpicolo
> Hello, this is Sharp Grotesk

They nailed it on grotesk

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tbv
This makes me sad. I can barely read that new typeface. If I were on the
market for a files backup solution, I'd want the product to communicate
robustness and reliability. This combination of whimsy and the site simply not
working sends a bad signal.

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Grue3
I haven't looked into details, but the presentation looks pretty garish. I
think the best thing about Dropbox is that you don't notice it. It just works.
A garish, attention-grabbing logo is the exact opposite of what Dropbox should
represent.

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danirod
What is this nightmare? Neither the Space bar, Down Arrow or Page Down keys
are working on this page in Firefox. I don't see the scrollbar either, so I
cannot guess how much will I have to scroll using the [sigh] mousewheel.

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moocowtruck
this has to be the worst website i've been on since 1997

double scroll bars? I can't scroll by clicking? all kinds of colors that don't
work, i'm so confused right now i'll just pretend it didnt exist..

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dhoulb
Urgh, gross. Visual vomit — totally impractical and communicates nothing.

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spike021
Who approved this?

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gwbas1c
Uhhh, did they only change the logo? Did they come out with a new product, or
alter Dropbox's functionality?

I really don't understand what this is all about.

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lessclue
Wow, this is truly terrible. Those colors are godawful.

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krsdcbl
I see what they're trying to do, but feel like it went horribly wrong at some
point and got forced into beeing a lifestyle magazine...

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valine
It's almost like they used a random color palette generator. The colors they
chose look entirely random to my eyes.

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pcmaffey
Wow, that broke my browser (chrome, no less). I love innovative UX, but
multiple internal scrollbars, a <noscript> tag that shows up as text at the
bottom of the page, hijacked and then broken scrolling. Looks more like a
college web design project than something that would come out of a top web
company... yikes.

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crispinb
I was truly convinced that this must be a third party joke, but it appears
Dropbox really does own dropbox.design.

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plinkplink
If this becomes the new trend in design, I might have to get out of the
business.

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nathanaldensr
Looks like they are modifying the site to fix some of the complaints here. It
doesn't seem to have two scrolling areas and standard keyboard navigation
seems to work.

The colors and typography are still hideous, though.

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AlexeyBrin
The scroll on the page is a terrible idea. I was under the impression the page
has a problem, with the delay between the left/right pane, until I realized it
was intentional ...

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vini
very bad ux on this one

~~~
marcofatica
agreed. the scrolling is awful and the text placement and sizing is weird.

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lousken
"You need to enable JavaScript to run this app." No thanks, there're exactly
zero reasons to have webpage like this JS only.

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amelius
There are two scrollbars, and both of them don't work!

The left one doesn't scroll, the right one reveals some weird script tag.

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szastupov
Omg the site is so jerky in desktop Safari.

~~~
williamstein
It's also similarly bad on iPad mobile Safari, actually making me feel a bit
sick...

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mellamoyo
What are fellow HN'ers using for file sync/sharing? I was a Dropbox early
adopter but haven't been as impressed as of late, with Dropbox suddenly trying
to integrate into my MS Office apps and trying to upload my screenshots and
photos.

I'm not a huge fan of Google Drive's recent redesign either. I like box.com
but haven't moved anything yet.

~~~
darkstar999
Resilio Sync, although I'm not necessarily advocating for it. It's nice to
have an option where nothing is in "the cloud".

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bengunnink
Is godawful rainbow design the new thing now? First Mozilla, and now Dropbox?

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Kiro
I get two scrollbars. First time I've seen that.

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mxwll
very spotify-ish

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ihuman
Why is this marked as a duplicate? It seems to be the only post from this url,
and the only post with the phrase "dropbox brand"

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holydude
The old dropbox for me had a spectacular unique design and i really loved it.
The design of the file browser before the previous one was imho the best.

I feel like this is a huge step backwards and if the seamless experience of
using dropbox worsens i will consider switching. But then again i am not a
paying customer.

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ant512
The jerky scrolling on that page isn't pleasant.

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minimaxir
This shouldn’t be marked as a dupe. It’s a new redesign.

