Google’s New App Color Scheme is Confusing
I miss the old days when the colors of the Gmail app icon were red and white. It was distinct. The red and white looked serious. Serious was a good thing because Gmail is a serious email app that can stand up to the day-to-day workload of any business. It’s that good.
This new color scheme of Gmail, Drive, Maps, etc. all using the same colors has got to go. There is no distinction between the apps when your eyes go searching. Yes, the icons are different, but for some reason that doesn’t work. Please Google, go back to the old colors.
Why is Google Always Changing?
Google seems to be a trillion-dollar business that gets bored, so they like to make changes, experiment, or shut down software.
Google changed their iOS apps to all have the same color scheme in 2020. I remember waking up one morning and could not find the Gmail app on my device. No matter how hard I looked, the multi-colored “M” logo did not register as the Gmail app.
I liked how the Gmail app used to be red and white. I felt those were the perfect colors for business. The colors were distinct, and they were opposite of the blue colors used on the native iOS mail app which I primarily use for personal email.
Differentiating Websites Tabs
The only distinction between various Google apps when using browser tabs is their icon. Google has changed these icons as well to all be the same color. This makes it hard to easily and quickly identify a tab in your browser.
A similar example would be if Google made Google Sheets and Google Docs the same color. When using your browser you would have to differentiate because the Sheets and Docs icon when choosing a tab.
Google Has Never Been Good at Design
Google has always struggled with the design of their applications and website. For some reason, there never seems to be a fluid flow of design like you see with Apple products. This is why you will always here Apple tech reviews mention the “Apple Like Experience”.
A good comparison would be their websites. Google’s website looks like someone from Microsoft Windows designed it and Apple’s website looks like Johnny Ive himself molded it with his bare hands. There is a big difference in how fonts, spacing, and colors are used. It is very hard to design something that will function and flow correctly.
Google Has Always Been Good at Function
Google is the best at executing how their apps function and sync. They have always been good at this. Much better than Apple. They make the best search in the world along with the best email app. Now, you could argue their search is so good because they have data mined their users for years to perfect the experience.
If you use Google Doc’s or Sheets daily, you know how good it is. They are spectacular pieces of software that can handle just about anything you throw at them. The built-in collaboration tools are second to none. They are that good.
The Gmail platform is so good you can find emails from ten years ago with a simple search. When used for business, you can keep your inbox clear by archiving everything because the search is so good. Gone is the days of having to organize everything into folders.
Keep the Original Colors, Flatten the Design
If you want to flatten the design of your logo’s or apply whatever new trends, ok, we get it. But leave the original colors that have created the foundation of your brands. There is no calm in Google’s new color choices for their apps. They look chaotic when they sit on the Home Screen of your iPad. So chaotic, your brain doesn’t know which app to click. The distinction was removed and now you’re left with a hot mess.
Google has spent years building these individual brands, and now they have lost their identities. Please Google, brink back the old colors, so we can easily find the app we are looking for.
