Instagram introduced a refreshed app and icon which looks radically different than the Instagram we came to love. The app is now completely white and black and looks more like the Twitter app more than anything. The icon is also no longer the realistic looking camera instead is an outline of the camera with the colors red and orange and a white background. The update is quickly rolling out to users, and many of them are reacting on Twitter.
The rainbow themed icon extends to the other Instagram complementary apps like layout or hyper lapse. The rainbow theme is meant to represent Instagram’s diverse community, which brings all sort of life and color to the platform.
“Color has always been a huge part of Instagram — you see it in the classic app icon, filters, and the community’s photos and videos,” Ian Spalter, Head of Design at Instagram, wrote in a Medium post.
“When we started reimagining the rainbow, we looked at more minimal options, but ultimately we needed more warmth and energy to complement the glyph.”
The update removes the iconic icon and blue from the platform and has created a lot of users talking about the changes. This is the first redesign since Facebook bought the photo-sharing service in 2012.
While I love the apps white minimalistic design, I wish the company would have introduced a dark theme to use when your surfing the service at night or low light. White themes have become popular on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and now Instagram. While users are shocked at the white theme, more users are talking about the icon more. The icon is universally hated, and I can agree with a lot of Twitter users who say the icon could have been slightly changed instead of what we got. We have to live with the changes though. It’s unlikely Facebook will try and roll back the redesign even if everyone is complaining on Twitter.
Tell us in the comments below what you think about the new app design and the new icon!