Google’s announcement of Google Workspace, the update to its
business-focused productivity software collection G suite, was filled with
introductions to new and robust features. The most prominent of these features
was undoubtedly the integration of all the major tools on their popular email
service, Gmail. But shining new functionalities was not the only news Google
had to unveil. It also used the opportunity to redesign the icons of most of
its software and tools, with Docs and Sheets seeing the latest changes.
While not remarkably different than their previous ones, the
new designs feature an icon of a page on a white background. In the case of Sheets, we have an icon
representing the cells of a spreadsheet, while there are three simple lines for
the word processor utility Docs. The famous drop shadow from the past designs
is also absent, and both icons give a strong feeling of belonging to the same
collection. However, this new design could easily lead to people mistakenly
opening the wrong one due to almost identical design elements. This was
avoidable in the previous design when both icons were radically different
looking.
This redesign points to a shakeup in the user experience and
design of the software featured in Workspace as well. With the advent of remote
working as a sudden possible necessity, Google seems to aim towards bringing a
more fluid and easy collaborative experience with these revamps.