A new face
By
Malthe on July 5, 2005 in Insight.
As you perhaps noticed when we launched share.skype.com, it looked at little different from other Skype websites. More bubbly, if you want. More bubbly, more colorful, more hand drawn.
That was on purpose. It was a prelude for a rather major shift in our design style -- a shift we recently applied to the good, old Skype.com website. And it also gave us a chance to change our main color from green to blue.
Why is that, you may ask? Or you may not, but I'm still going to pretend you did, and go ahead and answer your question.
Skype is approaching its second anniversary, and we have grown a lot and in a lot of different ways since our beta birth. I have personally been involved in all aspects of design, from user interface to website and business cards since Day One (or actually Day Minus-a-couple-of-hundred), and in that time we have changed and tweaked our design more than a few times.
But this time, it's a little different. As Skype and as our competition grow, our brand is becoming one of our more important assets. To put it short, our brand (for lack of better word) will help us distinguish ourselves from our competitors, be more memorable to people, attract more new people to try out Skype and help keep people currently using Skype to continue to do so. So we want to grow up a little, if you want, and be a little more consistent in our efforts, from website, to the Skype application, to a piece of hardware sitting on the shelves of a giant store in the middle of Tokyo. It's a large undertaking, and everybody in Skype as well as all our great partners must work together for it to be successful. As I'm sure they will.
What's different when working on Skype as opposed to many other projects I have worked with over the years, is the fact that it's not necessary to gloss over questionable spots or hide less admirable goals behind pretty pictures and "mission statements". We do some pretty great stuff here at Skype, and the core product is free to get started on and free to use forever and ever. There's nothing to hide there. So ever since we began, I've tried to convey the sense of honesty, down-to-earth-ness, competence and slight quirkyness that I see among the people working at Skype.
As always, the fun part is the result. All these words and thoughts meant that we needed to change and tweak quite a few areas of our design and brand.
First, the visual design. Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles everywhere. Speechbubbles are perfect for conveying what Skype is mainly about: Talking. Talking all day long, to anyone, anywhere in the world. For free. Of course we all originally know speech bubbles from comics (sorry, "graphic novels"), and we'd like to retain a bit of that fun and entertainment. And to avoid looking stiff and formal, we opted out of doing them in a strictly geometrical design style, with nice, straight lines and correctly sized pointers and whatnot. Keeping the hand drawn style makes the design more fresh and interesting to look at for a longer time. Of course, now the challenge is to not make the design busy and fragmented and unseable for people. We're aware of that danger, but please let us know if you think we step over the line.
Second big change is the main color. For you, Skype has mainly been looking green this past year or so. Before that, it was red, I think. Before that, purple (I kid you not). Actually, all along, we've had no less than 7 official colors for Skype, but now it was time to consolidate and chose one and only one. And that, ladies and gentlemen, became blue. Or cyan, as the correct name is. I can't say that there were strict, scientific reasons behind the choice. Red, orange and green are already being used by major companies, so that was a no-go from the start. Blue is used everywhere, but we really liked blue. It works well online and offline, so blue it was.
Thirdly, we changed our tagline. If you're hardcore into Skype, you will remember that the very first tagline was: "P2P Telephony That Really Works.", which was actually written by and snuck in by yours truly at some point while developing the first generation web site. That morphed into "Peer-to-Peer Telephony That Just Works" into the last one: "Internet telephony that just works.".
Now, we're pretty particular about our words here at Skype. And we really didn't like the "telephony" word. It smells like telecoms and is really weird to pronounce. Try it. "TE-LÉ-PHO-NY". It really doesn't sound very friendly, does it? No, it doesn't. The "Internet" part tied us too closely to a computer and "that just works" is not as unique as it was when Skype first launched. So we cooked up a new tagline: "The whole world can talk for free." We've cut away all the layers and gone directly to the interesting part: the "talking". The "whole world" indicates, well, the whole world, because that is in fact where you can call with Skype. And "free" is just that, as you know.
So, these were the words and thoughts behind our new look. Don't hesitate to make a comment or ask me a question -- use the comment field below, and I'll be sure to get back to you.
Hey, speaking of the new design, did you see the new film on the frontpage of Skype.com? If not, I'll just cut and paste it below, for your viewing pleasure. We're working on a few more, and we'll make a little notice here when they're done, so be sure to check back.
Comments
Interesting new look, and interesting reasons behind the change. The movie is brilliant. However I've heard people characterizing the new look as childish and for kids, some suggest that skype clearly defines itself as not being a tool for professional users.
Regards
madraven | Tuesday, Jul 5
Thank you for taking your time to tell us the story behind the new look!
I like the blue colors very much, I think they produce a solid, cool "business" feeling that balances the cheerful bubbles.
I like the bubbles, too, although I'd prefer not to see them being used _too_ wildly. Particularly, I would want the "top bar" of the page to be of the more formal business kind. The large "share share share share share Skype" across http://share.skype.com today is a bit too much, I think. Altogether, though: Very nice!
maboll | Tuesday, Jul 5
My comment on SkypeJournal (http://www.skypejournal.com/blog/archives/2005/06/skypecoms_makeo_1.php) was by no means offensive. I love the new style, it's very clean and doesn't assume too much about new users (being very computer-savvy). Keep it up.
-kevin
kev.delaney | Wednesday, Jul 6
I think the new logo and colour scheme is great - are you going to update the selection of Skype Me Buttons to reflect the new look? One of just the logo would be good. The existing selections give more than a hint of that purple you referred to!
brianaitken | Wednesday, Jul 6
The new "talk" branding is awesome. A+ for the "The whole world can talk for free" slogan. It's one of those amazing slogans.
dailymix | Wednesday, Jul 6
The bubbles are okay if not used too much.
And the film is cute.
(please fix the comment preview. it deletes the text when you click make changes. you just lost a 4 times as long friendly feedback ...)
nicole.simon | Wednesday, Jul 6
The films (all of them) convey how human you all are at Skype, and how human Skype users are. They're great. However, the handdrawn aspect of Skype's new look may be a bit too human: the flaws are more apparent then the genius of it. That being, it makes even me a little wary of SkypeOut and SkypeIn, since I'll actually pay for something that is advertised, at first glance, with flaws. Perhaps cleaning it so there's no artifacts (as in the green "Whole World." bubble), and making the Skype Logo itself agree with the advertising will help solidify the image as a phone service that is not only free to the whole world, but also "just works."
galensanford | Wednesday, Jul 6
The new movie ad is a riot!
I laughed and laughed!
dmak_25 | Thursday, Jul 7
Simple is beautiful.
mimiwu | Thursday, Jul 7
The new look is not really advantageous. Skype has already had a strong brand perception, associated with green (the color green conveys values like "free", "freedom" etc.).
Blue is far more serious but the change in corporate design is is lacking substance. The former look was more simple and easier to recognize.
All in all, not a good step in brand management.
markus.huebner | Thursday, Jul 7
FOR THE A FREE SCYPE
harrem3080 | Friday, Jul 8
I personally think Skype should try marketing to both major target groups.
The "bubbly" look is fine, however, I think Skype should not abandon the professional market. Rather, I think Skype should have two templates on hand:
http://share.skype.com/ could be have friendly, hand-drawn, "teen" feel, targeting the college age and IM crowd. It will focus on feeling accessible.
http://pro.skype.com/, http://skypster.com/ or something similar could aim at the business professional, and have a slick, crisp, modern look. It wont be so excessively "cute", and rather stick to the important and vital aspects of the Skype service.
Those are just my thoughts, anyway.
michaelbethencourt | Friday, Jul 8
i've introduced skype to my 5- and 6-year old nieces and they both liked the service and most especially the flash ad! they told me the movie is funny!
thanks skype!
-skypegtx
manila,philippines
skypegtx | Saturday, Jul 9
I think you're trying to hard to be cool. Just stick to being good. The new slogan really hits the mark. I've been an earlier adopter of VOIP and i now have a handful of friends and associates in different countries talking to me regularly via some form of internet telephony (it's ok for me to use that word). Add video to your client software and you'll have a IM killer app. You really need to start to aim for ubiquity. perhaps you could do some deals with ISP's, PC assemblers, Smart phone mfg etc to bundle skype with their product offerings. Also, the number of PC users who don't own a headset is staggering. We've had sound enabled personal computers for decades ( I kid you not) and yet we still, in the main, haven't embraced the whole talking bit.
ok..back to you now
Glenn, Sydney Australia
gjxda11 | Saturday, Jul 9
the new look is always better
cool, cool new look
keep the good work!
pecata_11 | Monday, Jul 11
Love it! simple, to the point, and mostly, memorable.
verticella | Monday, Jul 11
Nice film. Very explanatory and direct.
I'd like to see similar attention to making conferencing work, improving variable call quality at peak times, and providing a high quality recording function to assist thousands of podcasters who've taken up Skype.
wirelesstechradio | Wednesday, Jul 13
Very hot, very slick, very chic. It reminds me of the Pepsi ONEIFY and Apple iPod campaigns.... but more urban and friendly. And I love the fact that you guys communicate with us users on a personal level... all the site verbiage is like reading a postcard from a friend (as opposed to corporate BS). Thanks!!!
scottlewallen | Wednesday, Jul 13
the whole deal with the new style is just so skype. brilliant.
martintajur | Thursday, Jul 14
The bubbles are far too childish. I am not sure that a comic book is the right metaphor for Skype.
stadum | Friday, Jul 15
Dear Skype
I am reasonably happy with skype services, what disappoints me is that internet call from pc to pc is much far better than the prepaid service, a pc to pc conversation is reasonably clear, I thought let me spend some money atleast will get a clear phone calls to overseas, but the outcome was very disappointing, the calls gets cust from time to time, there is echo running in the background, there is a voice delay from my side to the other party and so on……….. I wish if you could improve the services for the near future.
Regards
Jiten
jitengovind | Saturday, Jul 16
I think that the color change was a great decision along with the site's fresh new hands-on look. I don't think the hand-drawn bubbles are such a bad idea. They seemed to give the pages a fresh look and restore that
doomswitch | Sunday, Jul 17
I have conect the skype line to my PBX in my house and my office now we enjoy the use of the skype in every extension I can forward the calls between the extencions and I can make three party calls IT IS GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!
grupotq | Sunday, Jul 17
스카이페가 국가별 서비스를 해서 너무 좋습니다. 웹사이트도 사용하기 편하게 만들어 졌구요.
sunnychang927 | Tuesday, Jul 19
i'm a sweetcandy, my name is lu, and i'm 17 years old, and live in holland, almere
sweetcandylu | Tuesday, Jul 19
Supporting Skype - Banners & Buttons. It would be nice to have some transparent images e.g. gifs or png's because the CMS (mambo)on my site currently doesnt support Flash animations in its entries! also when i tried implementating the flash it has been set to a white background! (argh) could this not be changed to a transparent one to allow a smoother intergration? check out my site @ http://www.swanseastudent.net But apart from that Skype is excellent! I find the audio quality better than that of a local phone call on real phones, if you understand what i mean! Keep up the good work guys! Sharing is good!
jonhurlock | Wednesday, Jul 20
People!
I’m new in Skype. Just installed it and has paid €10. I thought it works straightforward after. But each time I start Skype and try to call a regular number it claims I “need SkypeOut to call to standard telephone number” although after the number I dial there is (SkypeOut). Just for information I’m trying to call from Denmark to UK.
Could anybody tell me what is the trick?
Thanks.
Yuri.
yuri97 | Wednesday, Jul 20
PLEASE I NEED HELP: IS IT POSSIBLE TO RETRIEVE A SKYPE CONVERSATION THAT TOOK PLACE TWO MONTHS AGO?
I KNOW THIS REQUEST HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS TOPIC BUT PLEASE HELP ME.
KIND REGARDS,
JACQUESGAN3000
jacquesgan3000 | Friday, Jul 22
If you're a Skypster too, give me a holler... | Skypster.com
http://www.skypster.com
salesclick | Friday, Jul 29
My friends of Skype!I have one thing to say about Skype:Persons who use his brain-use Skype!Skype is the Best!Skype is Skype!If you dont know what is is Skype...You are out of our Planet.... rrmb534@ig.com.br
rr534rrmb | Saturday, Aug 20