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The New Dropbox(dropbox.design)

over 5 years ago from Bryan Zavestoski, Product Design @ Zavzen Design

  • David HaririDavid Hariri, over 5 years ago

    This is a shining example of a design team that has no idea who their customers are or what's important to them.

    What makes (made?) Dropbox great is it's simplicity and ease of use. Trendy fonts and Warhol colour palettes don't matter to anyone who uses Dropbox every day and don't communicate the principles of what makes its design great. I would argue that they may even get in the way of using a product like Dropbox. This feels like it was made by an agency for Kanye West rather than a serious interface design team. It doesn't even work in Safari for macOS.

    I'm pretty surprised to see this as the front page manifesto for what Dropbox's team thinks great design is.

    164 points
    • Nice ShoesNice Shoes, over 5 years ago

      I can only hope that the presentation of the rebrand is as bad as it gets. And in real world situations it’s not going to be as bad as it looks.

      10 points
    • Nick HerasimenkaNick Herasimenka, over 5 years ago

      They have one product and like 50 designers. You gotta keep those people busy.

      59 points
    • Wes OudshoornWes Oudshoorn, over 5 years ago

      I think Dropbox is losing ground because storage is commoditized. Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Amazon Clouddrive.

      You can try to win by having a superior UX experience, or at least be something different. WeTransfer is an example of wildly successful filesharing by just adding a great (design) experience.

      In this redesign, Dropbox is letting their brand to the speaking. I wish they would've worked harder on letting the content of my drive do the speaking. Google Photos is an amazingly nice product. I would like to see more products like that instead of these crazy redesigns.

      16 points
      • Nice ShoesNice Shoes, over 5 years ago

        Until their competitors have something similar to Smartsync, I'm staying put. Sadly.

        1 point
      • Joao Carvalho, over 5 years ago

        Agree with you with the commoditization issue. When the OS you use to get your stuff done already has a cloud storage to offer, you "probably" would only use other service providers if that cloud storage gets full (if it gets)

        0 points
    • Mikael StaerMikael Staer, over 5 years ago

      It's interesting to note they have pivoted. Go to dropbox.com and the text is talking about how it is a tool for creatives. Not a cloud storage app, but a tool for "creative collaboration." The images and text specifically call out Photoshop and Sketch, and show art and design work.

      Did they find out most of their customers are designers? Or did they do research that uncovered an untapped niche?

      5 points
      • Cory MalnarickCory Malnarick, over 5 years ago

        i think it's more likely they defaulted to what they use it for. i think it was a mistake on their part.

        2 points
        • Mike StevensonMike Stevenson, over 5 years ago

          Yeah, my friend the Realtor doesn't care about Photoshop and Sketch. If she visited this landing page, she'd leave immediately because she wouldn't get it. I think it's a major mistake.

          2 points
      • John PJohn P, over 5 years ago

        Wouldn't be shocked if design professionals were their "whale" customers. PSD files are THICCC.

        0 points
    • Gene M, over 5 years ago

      Words fail to describe how I feel about this decision to rebrand... my goodness.

      1 point
    • Diego LafuenteDiego Lafuente, over 5 years ago

      I couldn't write it so properly like this. When I saw the brand, I saw a narsicistic model of design: make this in a huge website explaining why this and that. Looks like a justification for work. To me, these websites and rebrands are the most useless thing ever. I've been participating in many many rebrands in my career and all I see is problems, new inconsistencies and too many design egos.

      4 points
    • John PJohn P, over 5 years ago

      Kanye has far better taste than this.

      4 points
    • Nicholas LintonNicholas Linton, over 5 years ago

      Hit the nail on the head. I wish is it was an April fools joke, because it looks like one. I've switched to box for it's superior functionality and streamlined design, glad I did or else I'd have to be blinded by these colors on tasks that don't need them.

      0 points