I wasn't crazy about the new logo for the Twitter app (Tweetie 3), so tried to do a new one... This is maybe something that I would've liked to have seen as a nice transition..
I love this because I love Tweetie and the original icon. However, @stop mentioned on twitter yesterday that the blue was kind of a necessity in terms of a business decision.
Why don't you try changing the silver to a twitter blue (aka teal)?
'Business decisions' is exactly why the acquisition of Tweetie was such a bad idea (certainly from the user perspective anyway). Note also the addition of—perhaps unwanted—features, such as trending. I think the market for an alternative quality iPhone client is again wide open.
Awesome. I'm not a huge fan of Twitter's bird in general (of course, not a reflection of your work). I've long thought they should just buy Ollie from Iconfactory.
Doug Bowman, Twitter's head of design, has even said that he liked the fact that Tweetie doesn't have a blue icon -- I wonder why they had a change of heart.
This is exactly what it should have been... hate the blue cheesy icon. For the longest time Tweetie has occupied one of four slots in the dock on my iPhone... I think I am going to have to move the current icon off screen to avoid having to see it all day long.
I really hope Twitter changes it up for this... awesome work man!
For the record, this was actually one of the earliest ideas we considered for the new icon, but for reasons I won't get into (or can't, depending how you read that), we opted for the one that's there now.
Do consider this, however: if it is our goal to present Twitter (experience, features, branding, etc), how exactly does a gray icon help us? True, it does stand out, but it's not exactly "Twitter".
Thank you everyone your comments! I couldn't agree more with you.. but yes, as Paul Lloyd and Paul Maiorana said, it's more a business decision, but IMO a business decision also considers good design.
@Doug I know.. I didn't even want to update the app.. ohh.. I haven't..
The icon that currently stands is obviously very similar to the base avatar in Twitter. The majority of the time the only users that stick with this base avatar are spam accounts and users with these avatars are often avoided. This is a common thought between myself and a few others I know.
I know when I see this avatar I pay no attention to that person.
@Mark Otto - What about keeping the grey background with the bird being the current electric blue? Afterall, it's the bird people associate with Twitter; not a background colour.
@Mark Thanks for the update! I know where you're coming from, and probably true, it's not Twitter, but it is also Tweetie, at least all the UI remained almost the same. Why keep the UID and not the icon?
Well, it's Twitter's shot, and they must have a good reason behind and a marketing pipeline for the product.
@mark - I would say most of the people who opted to buy tweetie at the time paid for the premuim UI + Icon (most people won't buy apps if the icon is ugly) and more often then not, they are not your 'average' tweeters. The new icon is so 'blah' that it looks like a free app (which usually are blah), and takes away any 'premium feel' that the old one had.
I'd wager a guess that the UI is closest to where we wanted an iPhone app to be. Each app should feel like Twitter, but it should also feel like Twitter for that platform. It's the same reason we don't have an iPhone-like app on a Blackberry or Android phone—it wouldn't really make any sense.
Sean: I understand where you're coming from, but do you have any research to back up your claim that most people buy apps just because of the icon?
All -- thanks for your comments. One of the iterations I proposed was very similar to this version Gerardo created. Silver icon, silhouette of the bird cut out. Proportions were slightly different. The best version used more blue for the bird, but retained the exact same silver color of Tweetie's icon. I thought it was the best choice of everything we had. For several reasons I won't go into, we opted for the version the app uses now.
As Mark alluded to above, Tweetie was acquired because we noted how many people were searching the App Store for "Twitter" and wound up in total confusion over which app to download. We wanted something that was not only named Twitter, but looked like Twitter to *new* users. In that regard, there was a conscious decision that the app did not need to look like an evolution of Tweetie, but rather, something that looked like an official Twitter app. Unfortunately, the silver color didn't convey that enough. At this point, it's unlikely the icon will change. However, we're continuing to evolve the Twitter brand, and it's likely you'll see the bird more often in the future as a key component of our brand.
@Doug Bowman - I completely understand new users looking for the word Twitter, but if they're new wouldn't the icon be irrelevant because they've never used the site before? I'm not disagreeing, I'm just curious.
@matt - no just speaking with people who have iphones/ipads in general. as you can see, this has been viewed 16,000+ times, isn't that a little interesting?
I wonder why they didn't use the very common social media icon with the 't'. I think that's way more recognizeable than the bird. Then again that is not my decision to make. Just saying.
I agree with Gedy. I think it's absolutely insane to think that twitter's "default avatar" icon makes more sense than a twitter "t"icon. To me, it looks like a company that is trying to represent themselves as twitter, but do it in such a way that keeps them out of legal trouble, so they use a generic, somewhat recognizable bird icon. I haven't used Tweetie in about 6 months, and I won't be using the official twitter app ever, especially now that it looks like it was spit out of an app icon generator for free.
Great points by both Doug and Tim. It's really exciting to see all this inside knowledge about the decision making behind the icon.
I understand both Doug and Tim. I think the icon will definitely be successful in helping to take frustration away from new users and strengthening brand recognition.
But, for me, a big part of what made Tweetie so good, was the icon. I think this is where frustration lies with former Tweetie users and the new icon. Maybe Tim is right, and we just need to "sit back and suck it". But, as I was a diehard Tweetie user, I now find myself wanting to explore other options.
It's obvious that Doug, and the Twitter crew, know exactly how important the icon is in appealing to and retaining users. Surely I'm not the only user who puts so much weight into the icon.
If what I'm hearing is that the number of users who feel like I do, pale in comparison to the number of new (confused) users, I understand the new icon. I only wish Twitter had gone with the concept that Doug mentions.
Until then, sadly, I'm considering moving to a different client simply because the icon doesn't appeal to me.
Thank you Tim for the thoughtful blog post. I totally agree that what designers like doesn't necessarily match what is best for the broad Twitter's user base.
I'm close to deleting this app and switching back to Tweetdeck, which is one of the ugliest twitter apps I know. All because I groan every single time I open my iPhone and see this spam like twitter avatar as my Twitter app icon.
My Response to the madness. Was a blog post necessary? Probably not, but what the heck, I had fun making some other icon examples to coincide Gerardo's beautiful version! :)
Starting with what Gerardo made (http://drbl.in/21376) This is my take on what the twitter app icon should have looked like. It would make sense to use the existing logo icon along with the beautiful Tweetie 2 icon. What do you think?
Doug, reading your comment I get the impression that you preferred an icon similar to Gerardo's, but some clueless executive made the call on the current lame icon. When I first read the news about the purchase of Tweetie, I hoped to god that you guys wouldn't screw it up. After seeing the new icon, and experiencing a buggy new version, my prayers weren't answered. I hope it doesn't get worse.
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50 responses
I wasn't crazy about the new logo for the Twitter app (Tweetie 3), so tried to do a new one... This is maybe something that I would've liked to have seen as a nice transition..
Update:
Here are some takes on this if you are interested:
Tim Van Damme & Josh Hemsley.
4 months ago
Wow, please release this!
4 months ago
This is exactly what I was expected from Twitter... but they put this horrible never-seen-before blue instead! Send this right nos to Twitter dude :)
4 months ago
This is so much better and stays true to Tweetie's roots :)
4 months ago
Love this.
4 months ago
Agreed. Why not?
4 months ago
I love this because I love Tweetie and the original icon. However, @stop mentioned on twitter yesterday that the blue was kind of a necessity in terms of a business decision.
Why don't you try changing the silver to a twitter blue (aka teal)?
4 months ago
if only custom icons where allowed on the iPhone... Great work!
4 months ago
yes although the new 'twitter' icon looks like it came straight from twitter.com which i think was the goal.
4 months ago
Lovely...
4 months ago
This actually matches the style of the app. Love it.
4 months ago
Ooh, this is lovely!
'Business decisions' is exactly why the acquisition of Tweetie was such a bad idea (certainly from the user perspective anyway). Note also the addition of—perhaps unwanted—features, such as trending. I think the market for an alternative quality iPhone client is again wide open.
4 months ago
Amazing. I went back to Tweetie mostly because of the icon.
4 months ago
That is exactly what I had in mind!
4 months ago
Awesome. I'm not a huge fan of Twitter's bird in general (of course, not a reflection of your work). I've long thought they should just buy Ollie from Iconfactory.
4 months ago
Doug Bowman, Twitter's head of design, has even said that he liked the fact that Tweetie doesn't have a blue icon -- I wonder why they had a change of heart.
4 months ago
This is exactly what it should have been... hate the blue cheesy icon. For the longest time Tweetie has occupied one of four slots in the dock on my iPhone... I think I am going to have to move the current icon off screen to avoid having to see it all day long.
I really hope Twitter changes it up for this... awesome work man!
4 months ago
So much better than the new one!
4 months ago
This is exactly what I had in mind. What's that blue all about? Hmm.
4 months ago
I like
4 months ago
Definitely. Awesome.
4 months ago
For the record, this was actually one of the earliest ideas we considered for the new icon, but for reasons I won't get into (or can't, depending how you read that), we opted for the one that's there now.
Do consider this, however: if it is our goal to present Twitter (experience, features, branding, etc), how exactly does a gray icon help us? True, it does stand out, but it's not exactly "Twitter".
4 months ago
Thank you everyone your comments! I couldn't agree more with you.. but yes, as Paul Lloyd and Paul Maiorana said, it's more a business decision, but IMO a business decision also considers good design.
@Doug I know.. I didn't even want to update the app.. ohh.. I haven't..
4 months ago
The icon that currently stands is obviously very similar to the base avatar in Twitter. The majority of the time the only users that stick with this base avatar are spam accounts and users with these avatars are often avoided. This is a common thought between myself and a few others I know.
I know when I see this avatar I pay no attention to that person.
4 months ago
@Mark Otto - What about keeping the grey background with the bird being the current electric blue? Afterall, it's the bird people associate with Twitter; not a background colour.
4 months ago
@Mark Thanks for the update! I know where you're coming from, and probably true, it's not Twitter, but it is also Tweetie, at least all the UI remained almost the same. Why keep the UID and not the icon?
Well, it's Twitter's shot, and they must have a good reason behind and a marketing pipeline for the product.
4 months ago
@mark - I would say most of the people who opted to buy tweetie at the time paid for the premuim UI + Icon (most people won't buy apps if the icon is ugly) and more often then not, they are not your 'average' tweeters. The new icon is so 'blah' that it looks like a free app (which usually are blah), and takes away any 'premium feel' that the old one had.
4 months ago
I'd wager a guess that the UI is closest to where we wanted an iPhone app to be. Each app should feel like Twitter, but it should also feel like Twitter for that platform. It's the same reason we don't have an iPhone-like app on a Blackberry or Android phone—it wouldn't really make any sense.
Sean: I understand where you're coming from, but do you have any research to back up your claim that most people buy apps just because of the icon?
4 months ago
Much prefer this icon.
4 months ago
All -- thanks for your comments. One of the iterations I proposed was very similar to this version Gerardo created. Silver icon, silhouette of the bird cut out. Proportions were slightly different. The best version used more blue for the bird, but retained the exact same silver color of Tweetie's icon. I thought it was the best choice of everything we had. For several reasons I won't go into, we opted for the version the app uses now.
As Mark alluded to above, Tweetie was acquired because we noted how many people were searching the App Store for "Twitter" and wound up in total confusion over which app to download. We wanted something that was not only named Twitter, but looked like Twitter to *new* users. In that regard, there was a conscious decision that the app did not need to look like an evolution of Tweetie, but rather, something that looked like an official Twitter app. Unfortunately, the silver color didn't convey that enough. At this point, it's unlikely the icon will change. However, we're continuing to evolve the Twitter brand, and it's likely you'll see the bird more often in the future as a key component of our brand.
4 months ago
i feel like i could stash drugs inside that thing. Feels like a giant pillow to me. Cool. :-)
4 months ago
@Doug Bowman - I completely understand new users looking for the word Twitter, but if they're new wouldn't the icon be irrelevant because they've never used the site before? I'm not disagreeing, I'm just curious.
4 months ago
@matt - no just speaking with people who have iphones/ipads in general. as you can see, this has been viewed 16,000+ times, isn't that a little interesting?
4 months ago
Blogged about my opinion on the whole thing. Doesn't mean I don't like your icon!
4 months ago
But you know the Tweetie 1 icon, right?
Very beautiful indeed.
3 months ago
I wonder why they didn't use the very common social media icon with the 't'. I think that's way more recognizeable than the bird. Then again that is not my decision to make. Just saying.
3 months ago
Great post on this Tim - worth a read.
3 months ago
I agree with Gedy. I think it's absolutely insane to think that twitter's "default avatar" icon makes more sense than a twitter "t"icon. To me, it looks like a company that is trying to represent themselves as twitter, but do it in such a way that keeps them out of legal trouble, so they use a generic, somewhat recognizable bird icon. I haven't used Tweetie in about 6 months, and I won't be using the official twitter app ever, especially now that it looks like it was spit out of an app icon generator for free.
3 months ago
Great points by both Doug and Tim. It's really exciting to see all this inside knowledge about the decision making behind the icon.
I understand both Doug and Tim. I think the icon will definitely be successful in helping to take frustration away from new users and strengthening brand recognition.
But, for me, a big part of what made Tweetie so good, was the icon. I think this is where frustration lies with former Tweetie users and the new icon. Maybe Tim is right, and we just need to "sit back and suck it". But, as I was a diehard Tweetie user, I now find myself wanting to explore other options.
It's obvious that Doug, and the Twitter crew, know exactly how important the icon is in appealing to and retaining users. Surely I'm not the only user who puts so much weight into the icon.
If what I'm hearing is that the number of users who feel like I do, pale in comparison to the number of new (confused) users, I understand the new icon. I only wish Twitter had gone with the concept that Doug mentions.
Until then, sadly, I'm considering moving to a different client simply because the icon doesn't appeal to me.
3 months ago
Thank you Tim for the thoughtful blog post. I totally agree that what designers like doesn't necessarily match what is best for the broad Twitter's user base.
3 months ago
I'm close to deleting this app and switching back to Tweetdeck, which is one of the ugliest twitter apps I know. All because I groan every single time I open my iPhone and see this spam like twitter avatar as my Twitter app icon.
3 months ago
You are all crazy!!! It's an iPhone icon - get over it!
3 months ago
Rebound
tweedle-do
May 22, 2010
Yes, more Twitter icons!
My Response to the madness.
Was a blog post necessary? Probably not, but what the heck, I had fun making some other icon examples to coincide Gerardo's beautiful version! :)
3 months ago
While this is a great icon, blue has always been the Twitter color.
3 months ago
I had this exact same idea last night. If you have a jailbroken iPhone, it shouldn't be too hard to replace the current icon with something like this.
3 months ago
Rebound
What twitter on iPhone should have looked like.
May 22, 2010
Starting with what Gerardo made (http://drbl.in/21376) This is my take on what the twitter app icon should have looked like. It would make sense to use the existing logo icon along with the beautiful Tweetie 2 icon. What do you think?
3 months ago
Definitely agree!
I thought the same thing!
3 months ago
Doug, reading your comment I get the impression that you preferred an icon similar to Gerardo's, but some clueless executive made the call on the current lame icon. When I first read the news about the purchase of Tweetie, I hoped to god that you guys wouldn't screw it up. After seeing the new icon, and experiencing a buggy new version, my prayers weren't answered. I hope it doesn't get worse.
3 months ago
Lovely icon !
3 months ago
Love it! I'm ashamed to have the new "Twitter for iPhone" icon on my home screen.
3 months ago