I liked the old site A LOT better. This one seems slightly amateurish and too artsy. Why a big blue hue on everything? This isn't art class, and we don't need to see their creative side.
Show me a cute monkey, show me emails.... Don't drown me in blue!
I'm looking at the site on a 1680X1050 display, and I cannot see WHAT the site is about... It did not occur to me to scroll down, because it seems to "end" at the fold, what with the boxes that typically precede the footer being there and all. No one looking at the site will have any clue what MailChimp is or does. Their logo doesn't appear above the fold, the word "email" doesn't even appear above the fold! I don't know what they think they did!
They sacrificed a TON of usability in order to become this artsy. I am not sure why since art has nothing to do with email--especially not business email.
The worse example of this is their feature tour. It is actually very painful to read now with way too much space wasted on illustration that contribute nothing. I couldn't find a single screenshot of the app.
Completely agree - the new design of the site doesn't lend itself to mailchimp's "culture" like the old one did. I thought the old site was damn near prefect for what it was!
I am agnostic on which will work better for the business, but I have an emotional connection with Chimpy. Chimpy is so instantly lovable that my mother can recall, two years later, that my B2B mail service provider is "the one with Chimpy." I have a Chimpy t-shirt that my girlfriend specifically requests I wear.
I am not a designer or a brand guy, and I'm willing to be convinced by an A/B test showing Faceless Corporate stomps all over Chimpy... but crkey, I would think long and hard about giving him up.
I believe I have the same Chimpy tee-shirt (grey AA?) which is one of my favorite teeshirts ever in terms of design and comfort. Such a great mascot, and instantly recognizable as Mailchimp. Are they giving him up for good?
I agree with the general sentiment here. I'm baffled and confused why they made this change. The reason I happened to have a screenshot is because I keep a folder of images of sites I think work exceptionally well. They lost both their usability as well as their humanity. That's a double whammy. I'd love to see a post from them explaining the redesign and any results that may come from this.
I heard they drastically downplayed their well-known chimp branding and color palette because they'll soon be making a big play into a white-labeled offering which will be totally without branding and customizable. This site redesign is the middle ground to acclimate existing customers to the big change before they roll out the updated app with white-labeling offered.
They should have A/B tested the new design v/s old design. It is so trivial to do that I am amazed why companies take huge risks going with an unproven new design.
Perhaps because they have spent a lot of money on the new design, and the people responsible don't want to invite the possibility of it being revealed as unsuitable?
This is not meant as any kind of judgement on anyone at mailchimp. Just thinking aloud.
They do have multiple designs right now, just try to refresh the site. I'm guessing they are keeping track of the conversion rate on each of the designs and will change them once they have enough data points.
You could not have done a worse thing to their previous branding an image, which I thought was pretty damn good in the first place. Nowhere on the homepage does it tell me what MailChimp actually does. The content font is pretty small, and hard to read many of the times. The feature and resource pages are painful to browse. All these artsy images are absolutely unnecessary. Even the guides themselves are actually pdf books you have to download, formatted in artsy ways, making the entire process of searching for help and answers really, really unpleasant. They've sacrificed tons of usability.
I'm a bit shocked that they'd do that, personally.
It could have been intentional. For instance, if they saw themselves being painted into a corner in the future, businesswise, they may want to make a branding break with their past sooner than later. They can always foreground the chimp, the color blue (or whatever) later.
There seems to be a trend in design the last few months (GAP, American Apparel, NBCUniversal the other day) and now MailChimp joins the ranks of people who throw out existing, awesome brands. The monkey is still somewhat present on the page, but this is really a downgrade from the old page. It definitely doesn't look good, and it completely disregards all the brand equity they've built up. It's too bad, because they had a great brand that I really responded to, even though I wasn't even a customer (I just realized I have recommended the service multiple times without even using it).
Is it fair to assume that the "Powered by Happy Cog Hosting" implies Happy Cog was behind the redesign? Potentially irrelevant, but curious.
Regardless, I agree. This seems like a step back. I'm a huge fan of Mailchimp, their brand (well, to date), and the way they engage their users (aka "support"). Mailchimp is known for their ease of use, but this design doesn't reinforce that, especially the overuse of imagery (ref: http://mailchimp.com/features/).
Happy Cog had nothing to do with the redesign. It was completed 100% in-house, and while I'm not exactly sure what DesignLab® has in store, I think you can expect some additional insight into the their thought/design process.
The site has certainly lost some of its quirky unique design and feel. It looks more like a thousand other websites now, and seems to copy a lot of 37singals. I do understand they are huge now and so have to appeal to a broad group of people, but overall it does feel a little boring and corporate.
It is certainly a safe design that will appeal, but it does appear to have lost some of its brand appeal.
Horrible - I don't know how or why, but I feel less likely to recommend the new MC than the old. I felt the old was a good mix between Aweber and Campaign Monitor, now they look exactly like CM, but worse.
There seems to be multiple designs, try refreshing the site to see some of the other ones.
I don't like the new designs, when i first saw the "Designer templates" one I actually had to check the url just to verify that I was still at mailchimp.com and not some generic design tutorial site.
I don't know why companies who aren't selling ads would choose a video platform other than Vimeo or Youtube. But I do know the customer stories look like I'm watching RealPlayer in 1998. And I'm on screamingly fast tubes in the middle of the country.
[+] [-] ComputerGuru|15 years ago|reply
Show me a cute monkey, show me emails.... Don't drown me in blue!
I'm looking at the site on a 1680X1050 display, and I cannot see WHAT the site is about... It did not occur to me to scroll down, because it seems to "end" at the fold, what with the boxes that typically precede the footer being there and all. No one looking at the site will have any clue what MailChimp is or does. Their logo doesn't appear above the fold, the word "email" doesn't even appear above the fold! I don't know what they think they did!
[+] [-] oneplusone|15 years ago|reply
The worse example of this is their feature tour. It is actually very painful to read now with way too much space wasted on illustration that contribute nothing. I couldn't find a single screenshot of the app.
I sure hope they are split testing this.
[+] [-] bobds|15 years ago|reply
When I looked at the old website, I knew what service they provided in a few seconds. Now, I'd think they are some kind of design shop.
[+] [-] ecaroth|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sambeau|15 years ago|reply
/pushes a small grey triangle/
[+] [-] patio11|15 years ago|reply
I am not a designer or a brand guy, and I'm willing to be convinced by an A/B test showing Faceless Corporate stomps all over Chimpy... but crkey, I would think long and hard about giving him up.
[+] [-] limedaring|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] catshirt|15 years ago|reply
that said, looks like Chimpy is back :)
[+] [-] hkuo|15 years ago|reply
I agree with the general sentiment here. I'm baffled and confused why they made this change. The reason I happened to have a screenshot is because I keep a folder of images of sites I think work exceptionally well. They lost both their usability as well as their humanity. That's a double whammy. I'd love to see a post from them explaining the redesign and any results that may come from this.
[+] [-] flyosity|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nhangen|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] there|15 years ago|reply
what am i missing here? i disabled adblock and flashblock. ff4 beta mac.
[+] [-] paraschopra|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JonnieCache|15 years ago|reply
This is not meant as any kind of judgement on anyone at mailchimp. Just thinking aloud.
[+] [-] svnv|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moe|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rhizome|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reason|15 years ago|reply
I'm a bit shocked that they'd do that, personally.
[+] [-] rhizome|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wdewind|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antidaily|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] malbiniak|15 years ago|reply
Regardless, I agree. This seems like a step back. I'm a huge fan of Mailchimp, their brand (well, to date), and the way they engage their users (aka "support"). Mailchimp is known for their ease of use, but this design doesn't reinforce that, especially the overuse of imagery (ref: http://mailchimp.com/features/).
Mailchimp has been known for their transparency (ref: http://blog.mailchimp.com/going-freemium-one-year-later/). I hope they share their decision process on this, or metrics on the new design, or both.
[+] [-] lauterthanbombs|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] covercash|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Julianhearn|15 years ago|reply
It is certainly a safe design that will appeal, but it does appear to have lost some of its brand appeal.
[+] [-] jefe78|15 years ago|reply
We had production ready templates in about 20 minutes! Keep up the good work guys!
[+] [-] js2|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nhangen|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] khangtoh|15 years ago|reply
Why did they lose the Chimp? I don't get that. They literally built their brand around the "Chimp". They've lost their identity (the chimp) ;P
[+] [-] kaib|15 years ago|reply
I think the new site looks even worse when you can compare them tab to tab..
[+] [-] mceachen|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] netmau5|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] svnv|15 years ago|reply
I don't like the new designs, when i first saw the "Designer templates" one I actually had to check the url just to verify that I was still at mailchimp.com and not some generic design tutorial site.
[+] [-] foobarbazetc|15 years ago|reply
The design is fine, though uninspired.
But what makes this terrible is that it is without soul.
Bring back the chimp!
[+] [-] subpixel|15 years ago|reply
I give the design a thumbs up, FWIW.