Instagram's New Icon Does Away With Nostalgia
As nearly everyone must have noticed, seeing as Instagram has around 75 million daily users, the massively popular social media platform has changed their icon as of 11 May. Since launch in October 2010, the archetypal brown camera has been a staple of smartphone use, which seems to have struck a note within Instagram's core.
The company released a blog post outlining the changes accompanying the new look as well as the story behind them. Inspired by the evolved nature of the app, Instagram took on a new challenge: defining itself by their users. What started as a photo-editing app has become something entirely different, and according to Ian Spaltar, Head of Design at Instagram, "we wanted to create a look that would represent the community's full range of expression - past, present, and future."
Along with the minimalist logo, the user interface now has a Moon filter, maybe it's Willow or Inkwell ... Basically, the app has undergone some color-sucking changes. Simplicity is key here, evidenced by the flattened camera design, lack of color (or distraction, according to Instagram), and an adoption of standard operating system components in lieu of originality. Falling back on UI standards makes the overhaul a mite easier to adjust to, invoking a sense of familiarity. By default, fonts are black and notifications show as red. Along with a brand new interface, the family of apps used to complement the editing experience - Layout, Boomerang, and Hyperlapse - have all been unified under the sunset that is Instagram.
Nine months in the making, the new icon was meant to take the most recognizable aspects of the old icon and modernize them. Coming from an earlier era, the Polaroid-like icon has been totally written over by what resembles a smartphone camera. Robinson Meyer of The Atlantic says it best, "The new icon, meanwhile, is everything an icon is supposed to be in 2016: flat, minimalist, fluorescent, and confident."
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| Medium.com |
The new icon feels great, I just wonder whether keeping slightly more of the original vibe might have been helpful… pic.twitter.com/ckAkV3qNaQ— Ian Storm Taylor (@ianstormtaylor) May 11, 2016
The candy-colored sunshine infused into Instagram's new logo takes its cue from the nostalgia-driven old logo, but is that all? A simple box and pair of circles; are they enough to represent a foray into the future of photo-capturing and reviewing?
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Instagram's New Icon Does Away With Nostalgia
Reviewed by Unknown
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Tuesday, May 17, 2016
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Reviewed by Unknown
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Tuesday, May 17, 2016
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