Google has rolled out a new all black navigation bar across the top of the search engine’s major sites like web, image, and video searches, Google News, Google Maps, and Google Calendar. So far, Gmail and YouTube seem unaffected by the change.
The change goes from black text with white background to a black background with grey text and white text for the focused “tab”.
Google discusses it in the latest official blog post, Evolving the Google Design and Experience. In addition to the color change at the top of the site, Google also lists that the business links have been moved to the bottom of the page and the logo has been reduced in size.
The way people use and experience the web is evolving, and our goal is to give you a more seamless and consistent online experience—one that works no matter which Google product you’re using or what device you’re using it on. The new Google experience that we’ve begun working toward is founded on three key design principles: focus, elasticity and effortlessness.
- Focus: Whether you’re searching, emailing or looking for a map, the only thing you should be concerned about is getting what you want. Our job is to provide the tools and features that will get you there quickly and easily. With the design changes in the coming weeks and months, we’re bringing forward the stuff that matters to you and getting all the other clutter out of your way. Even simple changes, like using bolder colors for actionable buttons or hiding navigation buttons until they’re actually needed, can help you better focus on only what you need at the moment.
- Elasticity: In the early days, there was pretty much just one way to use Google: on a desktop computer with an average-sized monitor. Over a decade later, all it takes is a look around one’s home or office at the various mobile devices, tablets, high-resolution monitors and TVs to see a plethora of ways to access the web. The new design will soon allow you to seamlessly transition from one device to another and have a consistent visual experience. We aim to bring you this flexibility without sacrificing style or usefulness.
- Effortlessness: Our design philosophy is to combine power with simplicity. We want to keep our look simple and clean, but behind the seemingly simple design, use new technologies like HTML5, WebGL and the latest, fastest browsers to make sure you have all the power of the web behind you.
What I’m seeing today seems to be just a sample as Google promises the design changes will be coming over the next few months.
Starting today and over the course of the next few months, look for a series of design improvements across all our products, including Google Search, Google Maps and Gmail.
Do you like it or hate it? It seems to be a pretty minor change in my opinion but the black is a stark contrast and catches your eye. Just doing a Google search for “black google bar” has some results already from people that hate the change or want to switch it back. Will it muster enough steam to warrant the ability to change the bar color like the Google Search Background Image hatred did last June?