In news about banal skeuomorphic depictions of email, Gmail has updated its art for people who achieving Inbox Zero. And if you’ve been invested in the discourse around minimalist — oversimplified, even — corporate revamps of brand identities like Discord and Firefox, well, you may think of this as a lateral move.
This is what users saw only recently when they came across an empty inbox or folder in Gmail. It’s a piece of clipart that screams of Corporate Memphis and makes you question how a person without eyes can read a book.
So, what did Google replace this masterpiece with?
Uh huh.
Those aren’t mailboxes. They aren’t even office out trays. They’re cubbyholes that wouldn’t look so out of place in a kindergarten, especially with that castle flag on top. Theo van Doesburg‘s kids would be happy there, I bet.
Sure, “saving” things with facsimiles of floppy disks might have been ill-adapted after 2005, but we still sort and store electronic mail in pretty much the same ways we fuss around with the stuff with stamps. There’s a case to be made for an envelope to be in this picture.
Now get off my lawn.
Thanks: Eduardo
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