Head in the Clouds

Gone are their soft corner browser alternative buttons with new bright hard edge ones in their place. Why the plastic toy logo, it’s reminiscent the casing on the original iMac (I’m pretty sure the G is blueberry). The biggest thorn is the awkwardly huge whitespace on the right side but the brightly colored icons inflict their share of pain. I encourage redesign and bold moves but I find this unpleasant. I think the left hand bar is useful and inevitable but the brightness of it, the visual dominance of it really steals the focus from search. I’d mute everything down except the results. I love what they did a few months back with the homepage: it’s just the logo, search bar, and buttons until you roll over and only then does all the clutter fade in.