Nov 04
Review: PayPal Redesign
What do you think of the recent PayPal redesign and the new PayPal branding? In my opinion, I think the new design is very unprofessional and lack of consistency. My very first reaction to the new PayPal redesign was "What happened to PayPal? Got hacked!?" PayPal has made such a drastic change that it doesn’t even look or feel like PayPal (the PayPal that we used to). I think it will take us a while to adapt to the new design. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying change is bad. Changes are good if the results are positive. Here are my thoughts on the new PayPal design…
PayPal logo redesign
Visually, there isn’t much change in the new logo. You can read the details on the logo redesign from the PayPal blog. UnderConsideration - Brand New also has an interesting article on how the new PayPal is created in simple 7 steps.
I find the old PayPal logo works very well on various backgrounds, where as the new logo doesn’t provide good contrast on color background. Let’s take a look the new and old PayPal logo on various background colors.
Why is this so important?
Don’t forget not all websites are using white background. What if the website’s backgound is the same color as the PayPal blue? Then, one of the words will be invisible (see image below).
Site Redesign
In general, I agree the new design look more cleaner. But, does it work? Not really…
Menu - CSS bug?
I’m not sure if it was intentional or a CSS bug. Take a closer look at the main menu, notice there is a 2px bottom margin?
On some internal pages, the 2px margin disappeared. Bug or inconsistency?
Gradient login box
The metallic gradient inside the login box is very dark which created low contrast between the text and the background. People with low contrast or dim monitor will have problem reading the small text.
Web 1.0 arrows
The glossy menu is very Web 2.0 contemporary, but the arrows and cut-corners are back to 1999?
Why Flash?
At first I thought it was Javascript, then later I realized it is Flash. Why use Flash for that simple animation/transition when it could be done the same with Javascript? Couldn’t they do better animation with Flash?
Inconsistent stylesheets
Just click around the top level navigation, you will find there are two different stylesheets (one stylesheet used Arial font, another one used Verdana font). For example, let’s take a look at the Financial Products and Request Money page:
In term of frontend pages, the PayPal site is quite small, so I’m very disappointed that they can’t even manage the stylesheets properly. It seems like PayPal is still using the old stylesheet on some of the pages.
Again, inconsistent search form:
Spam page?
Take a look at the Products & Services page, doesn’t it look like those parked domains filled with spam links (the middle portion)?
What do you think?
Please cast your vote and share your comments on the new PayPal redesign.
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Comments
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There are 155 comments (+Add)
Pages: 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 … 1 » Show All
155 vincentdresses http://www.hibridal.com
January 5th, 2010 at 11:29 pm
The designs showed here show what simple and tasteful design is all about. Another one to consider
154 Mike http://www.comastore.com
October 31st, 2009 at 4:26 am
I like the old paypal logo
153 raj
October 24th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
PayPal has done it again. They have changed the design again. checkout the new design. It too bad… any comments.
banners and images have rounded corners and a straight line at left. a parallelogram rounded corner at the right side. What happened to the basic design principles. where is the consistency?..
paypal.com
152 Liza
October 11th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
These people that have nothing nice to say about the author are just jealous. You don’t like it, don’t bother visiting the website. I happen to think that he is one of the most talented graphic and web designers around. Keep up the good work and Thank You for the inspiration!
I totally agree with you about the new paypal logo redesign.
151 Cyrus
September 21st, 2009 at 9:59 am
Great , Review: PayPal Redesign
Great article. CSS saved web design
Cyrus
Visit http://www.psdtoxhtmlcoder.com
150 bagsin http://handbagsurf.com
September 10th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
The new one is more stable.
149 Aoobi http://fashionow.net
September 4th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
read the “logo” thing and just left the whole article. Your explanation why the new logo is worst then the old one is the most stupid think I’ve ever read! It is obvious you have no idea how a logo is designed and presented.
148 cennetevi http://www.cennetevi.gen.tr
August 8th, 2009 at 6:23 am
Thank =)=)=) you http://www.cennet.gen.tr webdesignerwall Thanks
147 Matt Hough http://adtelly.tv
June 18th, 2009 at 4:31 am
Something else that is really irritating, they have set a max width that is so small now names of buyers on the Most recent activity do not fit, you have to have a 1 syllable first and last name to fit on it, so makes it confusing on the eye to see what is what. Then we have alerts that popup saying that they are doing maintenance between 7am and 9am BST, but that pops up at 11am, 2 hours after??
Then the text is so “Dim” it is the first site I have ever had to change my contrast on to read the text without hurting my eyes.
Then the best one of all.
As I cannot get any history, I thought maybe the CVS works, so I click on it and I get a page saying that they want to verify I am the owner of my account before I can perform that action, the number they offered me to select is one at my other house, so I selected “Other” (expecting to be able to enter or select my other number. What it offered me was to give them a reason why, so I selected “change of number” from the drop down box and it replied “OK” and let me carry on and download the CVS ?? what kind of security is that ?
It is all wrong!
146 Matt Hough http://adtelly.tv
June 18th, 2009 at 4:18 am
You woudl think that they would redesign all on another test site first. So much is wrong, not to mention half of it does not even work for me, example: no history what so ever in transactions (and yes I do have many that should show), and I am not even sure if the subscriptions are working properly now. The site looks cheap and tacky and completely unfinished, which obviously it is as they are redesigning on a LIVE site ??
I say fire the designer and hire a 3 year old to do a better job!