Thursday, June 06, 2013

Birchbox's New Site

Got several emails saying to check out the new BB site, and just really felt the need to do a quick post and put my 2 cents out there (not that they're needed).

1. Not a fan of the new color scheme- It must've been strange to have a girl and guy site with separate colors, but black/gray?? seriously?? What part of that says "FUN"? Sophisticated maybe, but mostly boring.

2. The new layout is interesting- it seems overly complicated in some places (*cough* front page *cough), but only time and user usage will tell how the split women men dropdowns function irl.

3. The new logo is hideous- I'm with all those who were fond of the trademark birch stripes. This new B with a diamond in the middle looks so much LESS sophisticated than the previous logo. The logo before looks like it actually took more time and effort compared to this new one. And for some reason the recurring thought in my head is "it's fat". The ratio of positive to negative space is off. It actually doesn't look too bad on the boxes and in the green, but the black "B" that's used as an avatar and on top of browser tabs is terrible.

4. We miss the pink!- that was what said "fun" before. A search around the new site reveals that the only pink left is on images of the products themselves. I should say that I am not a pink lover, but it was what really gave BB the "light", "carefree", and "young" feel. It makes you feel like you can still experiment with different things and be quirky about it- that there's no harm in trying out different things. A look at the new site makes me feel constricted, and, yes it must be said- OLD. It now feels like a conservative society where all deviations are shunned.

One thing that I DO really like is the more detailed profile questions. Hopefully they will lead to some good changes.

I'm pretty sure when I first looked at the site, it was different from what it looks like now (it looks better now). I seem to recall that hideous B logo there previously.

Well, we shall see.