Meet Pinterest’s new red
If you’ve noticed the Pinterest red has changed, you’ve got some seriously sharp eyes — nicely spotted! It’s a pretty small change in the big scheme of things. But actually, a lot of thinking went into it.
A few months back, a small group of brand designers, product designers and engineers all teamed up to take a closer look at the Pinterest red. The brand has evolved quite a bit since it first hit the scene in 2010. Our question: Was the original red still right for us?
People today describe Pinterest as their own positive corner of the internet. It’s where they go to spark their creativity, get inspired to try new things and explore their tastes — all without worrying about what anyone else thinks. One reason people feel so comfortable here is that Pinterest was redesigned a couple years back to feel as easy as a toy to use. Was there another red that captured this sense of unselfconscious play and experimentation? One that better reflected the Pinterest spirit of creativity and inspiration?
We started experimenting with new reds. We wanted something that felt like us, worked across our product and our marketing, and was welcoming and accessible to all 250 million people around the world who use Pinterest. No big deal.
Color is incredibly subjective because we assign value to colors based on how we experience them out in the world. Like how the red of The Red Balloon brings back feelings of exploration and friendship. Or the red of everyone’s favorite emoji heart, which evokes love and enthusiasm.
What makes color tricky is that our perception of a specific color can change based on surrounding colors. Maybe you read about this from design legend Josef Albers, or you experienced it yourself, trying to wear cream-colored pants with a yellow shirt. So you want a color that works well no matter what it’s paired with.
And while the new red is really more about the quality of the product and how it reflects our brand (vs. more of a performance-based decision), we still put a lot of thought into how the new color functioned within the app. Not only did the new red have to work well with other colors, it also had to be accessible.
After experimenting with lots and lots (and lots!) of different reds, we finally landed on one that engineering, product design and brand all loved. From this day forward, you’ll start to see the new red rolling out throughout the app, website and anywhere else Pinterest shows up in the world.
As I said before, evolving our red is a relatively small change. But as Charles Eames once said, “The details are not the details. They make the design.” We care about every single last detail of our brand, and our product experience. And small changes like these add up over time, hopefully bringing Pinterest ever closer to the kind of helpful, inspiring brand we’re looking to build.
If you’re reading this and are similarly color-minded, you might want to check out The Secret Lives of Color. It reminds you there once was a time when you just didn’t see certain colors in goods and materials because the necessary pigments were too difficult to create or too expensive to find. Color is so easy to take for granted, but it’s really one of the most powerful tools for communication.
