Okay Geek Farm
Google's site has been un-officially redesigned
Brandon Davenport
The Google homepage has been essentially the same since day one — blue underlined links, white background, the famous multi-color logo (inspired by Lego) and the occasional Google doodle. The Google homepage and search page have undergone many tweaks and enhancements, but it has never strayed from what it has always been… simple.
Designers cringe every time they see a product by Google (the “3D” buttons, wierd color choices and lack of structure other than pure text and a few images), but Google understands who uses the search engine and what they want — and that’s why they’re so successful.
Designers like this design, nobody else does
I whole heatedly love this design to the core, and it vastly improves the search-results and overall look of the site, but it requires a designers eye to appreciate the small things. 99% of internet users don’t understand “noise textures, text shadows or gradients”, and the hard work that Craig Reville put into this design would be un-noticed. Furthermore, people would see this and not know what to do — to the average Joe, there are no links on this page. As designers, we clearly understand where the links are, and what to click on, but if you show this to a non-designer, they will either hate it, or not understand what to do, or what to click on.
In the end, this is just a fun activity that designers like us like to do to build our skills, and try to improve things. Google is obviously catering to the masses, and that’s why they are so successful — “good” design doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is better, more relevant design.
