Dropbox identity (2017 redesign)
From Dropbox:
As our mission has evolved from keeping files in sync to helping keep teams in sync, we realized our brand needs to change, too. Our new brand system shows that Dropbox isn’t just a place to store your files—it’s a living workspace that brings teams and ideas together. The look is expressive, with vibrant colors, rich imagery, a versatile typeface, and playful illustrations.
No longer content with being a place where you put, and sometimes share, your digital junk, Dropbox is now a digi-creative condenser. Copy aside, the design team (along with Instrument, Collins, Animade, XXIX and Sharp Type) managed to think outside the box and get away from the Silicon Valley consensus à la blue-white, flush-flat design. The new identity is presented through an elaborate minisite that starts out with mission statements and typograpical explanations, before exploring into animation and illustration.
Speaking of typography, Dropbox now featues Sharp Grotesk — and lots of it, 259 different fonts to be exact. While the use of such a wide palette might seem unruly, that is also the point. The typeface carries with it more than enough character to still feel coherent, making sense in both user interface and Animade’s whacky gifs.
With 259 fonts, our new typeface Sharp Grotesk gives us lots of versatility, allowing us to “speak” in a variety of tones. Take a look at the gif to get a better idea.
Our new system lets us pick the right amount of expressiveness for the situation. Color can go from a standard Dropbox blue to “whoa.” Same for type, photography, and illustration. In a marketing campaign, we can dial things up to provoke and inspire creative energy. But in our product, where people need to concentrate on their work, we can dial it down.
