Eli Schiff and Mike Rundle on Dropbox Rebranding (elischiff.com)
almost 6 years ago from Mike Rundle, Designer, Engineer, Writer @ Flyosity
almost 6 years ago from Mike Rundle, Designer, Engineer, Writer @ Flyosity
Could someone kindly offer a TL;DL?
You could try listening on 2x speed.
In short they slate it, but for the right reasons rather than the usual 'the designers really fucked up here'.
After getting the unavoidable jokes out the way, they go in depth on the politics that bring about things like this, the different type of designers and stakeholders that will be part of the decision, the relationships between in house and agency, product and marketing etc. Then talk about what's next and how it effects things a bit.
Really interesting discussion.
Their argument is that the new branding "outside the box" approach is pointless. My overall take on Eli is that he is very afraid of change. His lack of creativity sometimes amazes me, they over-criticized something similar with Framer. The point that they never touch is something I've been thinking a lot recently. Dropbox and other storages companies are trying to get rid of the file system. Whether that's good or bad and that's an argument for a different thread. But I can see how thinking of the company as a place bigger than just storage needs a rebrand like this.
The discussion about Dropbox being a commodity and that it doesn't need an expressive brand, the new brand doesn't match the boring business of storage, etc., annoys me. The commodification of cloud storage will ruin dropbox if they don't figure out how to be more than a commodity. Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, and Google all offer storage as a feature of their platforms.
When we look at Dropbox, we see it only as it has ever been. But inside of Dropbox, people know the long term strategy. There are products being developed that we don't know about. It makes sense that they are moving away from commodified cloud storage because that business will soon become just a feature.
I agree here, I already only use dropbox when forced to because "cloud" based storage is offered by every major player, and once a social engine decides to do one, well all of these smaller guys are out.
Absolutely loved that discussion, definitely helped me make sense of this whole situation.
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