Earlier this week, Netflix unveiled a new logo.
Premiering Monday on the company’s Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram profiles, the slimmed down design—a red “N” overlaid on a black background—was created with readability on smaller (read: mobile) screens in mind, and will soon become the face of Netflix’s app.
Source: The Verge
So far, reaction has been mostly positive, but we’re guessing that’s because the update has yet to hit mobile home screens. As we’re all too aware, praise for updating a look, especially when it comes to popular, beloved apps, is few and far between. In just the past year alone, numerous app re-imaginings have been met with little more than outright condemnation.
We take a look at the most notable.
Spotify
Source: Entreprenuer
Last summer, the music-streaming giant updated their logo in the most minimal way possible, moving from one tone of green to another. Nothing—I repeat, nothing—else was altered, and yet, users were upset enough to force lead designer, Tobias van Schneider, to issue a defense of the change.
A year later, the design has remained and the vitriol has all but disappeared. And with Spotify recently crossing the 100 million users mark, the outcry doesn’t appear to have had any effect whatsoever.
Apple News
Source: Gizmodo
This month, Apple updated the look of the Apple News app, and for some, it comes a little too close for comfort to the logo of popular video game "Dota 2." While most (rational) people believe the similarity in design was unintentional, many think that it demonstrates Apple’s disregard for gaming and the gaming community.
That could spell a problem for Apple if mobile games continue to grow in popularity, and serious gamers start opting for devices based on the perceived support of mobile gaming. It’s a stretch, though.
Google Play Redesign
Source: The Verge
Ok, so this is kind of cheating. The Google Play redesign is not one app, but rather Google updating its suite of app logos to achieve a more unified design.
Little backlash has come. Though, some Google Play fans have complained that the codifying of propreitary apps through design is too similar to Apple's UI. And as we know, Android users (or at least those in ad campaigns) pride themselves as being the individualists to Apple’s conformists.
Source: The Verge
Who could forget the outcry earlier this year when Instagram drastically overhauled its app’s design? The Internet was aflame. Adweek called it a “travesty.” Or just take a look at this hilarious (scary?) post in the New York Daily News recounting the widespread denouncement of the new minimalist design.
A few months later, though, after the initial “hot takes” died down, the tide seems to have turned, and the redesign praised. In May, Business Insider wrote how the new logo “is actually 10% more engaging to the human eye than its predecessor.”
Uber
Source: CNN
Uber’s redesign was met with the same—if not more—hatred than Instagram. The only difference? Months later and everyone still hates it.