Stopdesign Going to Google
by Trevor Turk
Douglas Bowman of Stopdesign, probably the best web designer I know of, has been working with Google for 6 months now, and has just taken a position there full time. This might not seem like such a big deal, but I’m certain that his influence will show up throughout their product line, and this is a very good thing. I appreciate clarity and simplicity just as much as the next guy, but I think that Google design comes across as overly sparse a lot of the time. The middle-ground between lush graphics found in a lot of Stopdesign work and the “classic” Google look and feel sounds just about right to me. Side note: I think Daniel Burka of silverorange might be the number one independent designer, now that Google has locked Mr. Bowman up. Read Going to Google:
…After a bit of negotiation and a lot of internal debate, I recently accepted an offer to join Google as Visual Design Lead, a position that did not previously exist there. I’m charged with helping the company establish a common visual language across all their collaborative and communication products. This includes products I’ve already had some hand in like Blogger and Calendar. But it will also include other highly used products like Gmail, Writely, Page Creator, and other projects in the pipeline.
