The web giant wants to be known for beauty as well as brains
Google’s makeover comes as tech firms are realising that smart design is a good
way to reach—and to retain—mass audiences. Fast-growing start-ups such as
Pinterest, a social network, have made looking sexy a priority.
What makes Google’s efforts so striking is that the firm has long had a
reputation for caring far more about algorithms than aesthetics. In 2009 Douglas
Bowman, its top designer, quit and complained that Google’s obsession with data
was preventing it from listening to its designers. In a farewell missive, he
wrote that it was hard to work in a culture that insisted on testing 41
different shades of blue to determine the right colour for web links displayed
in search results.
