By Mary Rae Floresca | Negosentro.com
Last Wednesday,Instagram has spruced up their icon and application design. The new app design represents a simple camera and the rainbow lives in gradient form. This popular app launched their new design in their blog post with a supporting quirky video on how the revolution of its design.
The head designer of Instagram, Ian Spalter shared, “We created a new Instagram app icon and a set of unified icons for Hyperlapse, Layout, and Boomerang. We’ve also refreshed the user interface with a simpler, more consistent design that helps people’s photos and videos shine.”
Instagram wanted to create a design that reflects community’s full range of expression, namely, the past, present and the future. They thought of making a significant way of making the icon look better and not just for the sake of changing it.
Now, how did they begin? The team believed that people loved the rainbow and the camera lens was a key visual element. The team was challenged to draw the app’s icon from memory in a few seconds, almost all of them resembled the lens, viewfinder and colors of the rainbow. Spalter explained, “With this insight, we decided to translate these elements into a more modern app icon that strikes a balance between recognition and versatility.” Instagram’s interface was also improved without changing how users navigate the app.
Instagram was launched in October 2010, created by Stanford graduates Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. After two years, there were over 100 million active users. Today, there are 400 million monthly users and posts hits more than 80 million photos and videos each day on average, according to Instagram’s blog post. Based on this, the creators opted for a simple revamp on the icon’s design without outshining the user’s different photo and video posts. The focus should still be on the posts. The new app’s design was kept simple despite of the shift of colors from retro-looking greys, browns and whites.
Spalter added, “The evolution of the community has been inspiring, and we hope that we’ve captured some of the life, creativity, and optimism people bring to Instagram every day. Our hope is that people will see this app icon as a new creative spark — something to have fun with and make their own.”
