It didn’t take Google long to follow into Facebook footsteps and change the look of their social website. Unlike Facebook, the change was not as drastic and didn’t leave an unprepared profile looking plain. Still, an updated look meant some redecorating on our (the PayLane’s) part.

Google offered two possible looks of the site: one involved a long cover picture and the other offered a chopped version, composing of five small squared pictures. At first, the first option seemed to be a good idea, but soon proved to be rather tricky. The chopped version was much more interesting to design.

The first draft took full advantage of five small pictures and listed company’s features. Not bad (though the clarity of the font needed to be enhanced), but we opted for something different, something linking Google+ to our Facebook profile.

As our Facebook profile featured the team photo, we’ve decided to add the same pictures to G+. Still, we thought that something was missing. The logo in the profile picture, though quite alluring, was not enough. And putting the PayLane name in one of the five pictures seemed neat at first but later raised a whole lot of questions: why this picture, does it mean something… this last picture needed a tagline, not a logo.

Aaaand these thoughts led to slight modifications in the profile picture (the name returned to the logo) and putting up a tagline we liked: “online payment wizards”.
In the end, our Google+ profile is linked graphically with our Facebook profile but still comes across as a different entity… And that’s what we were aiming at!

Ania

Ania is interested in all things design, as well as popular literature and film. She writes about the pretty side of credit cards and e-business. She's also responsible for some neat infographics and spends her free time writing short fantasy stories. An avid reader of graphic novels, she tries in vain to finish one herself. Has a credit card and is not afraid of using it online. Owner of a rather wicked sense of humor.