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Rebranding: My own redesign!

Gabe_ozGabe_oz Posts: 1,880 Member
So it's no secret by now that Maxis is deciding to rebrand The Sims 4, I left my thoughts on this in another thread yesterday (I'll leave the original comment I made in the preview below) but in all of this I really do appreciate their effort to switch things up but I feel it was not properly thought out and rushed. I love it when a company decides to rebrand, I think it's a great refresher and brings something new to the table. But I felt this was just poorly done and I quite simply don't understand how everything went through concept/design, creation, approval and reveal in the state that it's in.

My original comment (Warning, it is a bit crude. I was really worked up over it at that moment)
I'm going to be honest... it's horrid (And I came back here after all this time to say that).

While I dont mind the box art, I don't like the sims in it. I feel there could have definitely could have been a lot more thought put into them as they look more like randomly generated townies at this point.

The plumbob I simply just dont like at all, it feels like a step back in design. If they were to change it, I would have much preferred the original, more realistic plumbob that they originally used for TS4 (even desaturating the new one would improve it so much more).

As someone who has been practicing graphic design before he was even 10 (it's been over a decade now), and is actually taking classes in graphic design. The worst part of it all by FAR, is the main menu and pack box art. The colors on the main menu are waaaay oversaturated and the different shades of blue really just do not fit together here. The fact that the packs section takes up literally half the screen, leaving massive amounts of of empty space is just a massive design flaw. I just dont know how it was possible for them to just take away all the improvement they've made to the main menu over the past 5 years and make it 20x worse.
The new box-art for the packs is absolutely horrid, there is absolutely no reason why this should have been able to go through concept, design, testing and reveal. It's honestly just embarrassing that this is happening. The colors, again, are way oversaturated and the design itself is just... *sigh* looking at it honestly just stresses me out, I'm just going to leave it at that.

It's completely mind boggling to me that they thought this was a good idea. It would have been so much more efficient if they spent the time of these graphic artists and UI designers to overhauling the live mode UI.

Quite a while ago I made a thread ( here ) where I redesigned the live mode sim panel to accommodate households larger than 8 sims, give more options and pet integration. And I got such positive feedback from that, so I decided to work on revamping the existing UIs and really more of a classic sim feel to the existing interface.

I feel that they were trying to go with a more retro, classic sims vibe. And while that sounds great in theory, it just doesn't really work for me. It feels clunky, hurts your eyes and can cause headaches/migraines for simmers with color sensitivity. So I decided to take my own approach to this.

Something I absolutely love is the original Sims 4 interface that we saw in leaked early builds and on the game's reveal at Gamescom, and that's definitely something I wanted to reflect in my new concept/design, because I feel that is a great modern version of the classic blue UI.

Right now I only have the main menu, but I do intend on working on a load screen and in-game UI.

(Here are pictures inbcase you haven't seen them or wanted to refresh yourself)
OMwQuXC.png

cpHDQ2e.png

When I was starting to create the new main menu, I had a few things to get out of the way first.

1. Plumbob: For this I did not use the new plumbob or change the old one in any way. I find the new one to be quite ugly, so I made the decision to use the one we've had for the past 5 years.

2. Pack Icons: I appreciated their effort to streamline the packs. But the colors were way oversatured, the pack covers are simply horrid and the expansion packs lost all of their uniqueness and I wanted to keep it. So I completely remade the expansion and game pack icons from scratch (I did not do the stuff pack icons simply because I didnt need it for my example here, but if enough of you would like I would be happy to do the stuff pack icons as well)

Something to note about the pack icons I discovered is Maxis' lack of consistency. I discovered when zoomed way in on a screenshot of the main menu that all the expansion pack icons are shaped differently, it's not easily noticeable, but if you look hard enough you can probably see it. Almost all of the icons have a slightly different width and height (even some of the angles of the lines on a few of them are different).

But since we're on the topic of new pack icons, let me go ahead and show you the ones I made!

Expansion Packs:
I24tEjM.png

Game Packs:
4HiF7gh.png


Now it's time for the main part, the main menu. As I said before I am going to do the loading screen and ingame UI and update this over time but I wanted to get this out!

For the main menu I really wanted to take the template of the existing one and improve upon it with a classic Sim blue and some rearranging, I didn't feel it needed a complete overhaul. One thing is that I felt it that the existing pack section could be used for something better, so I decided to instead use it for a quick load section, to quickly load recently played save games. I then decided to move the pack section to the center bottom (hello new icons), and I didn't want this to be too in your face so I decided to make it (in theory), collapsible. So you didnt have to see a massive glaring menu that takes up an entire half of the screen *cough* *cough* In the top right I redid the existing UI (to tie into my later UI overhaul) and again, gave it a nice blue look that resembles what we saw in early alpha versions. There we have the gallery icons, and two new ones. The news icon and the shop icon.

So here it is:
NbYMUNI.png

And I even have a photo outlining everything in the redesign that you can see here:
hVNQpHo.png

Thank you all for reading if you made it this far! I hope you really like it and I'll be working on the rest of my redesigns. :smile:
Post edited by Gabe_oz on

Comments

  • ChazzzyChazzzy Posts: 7,166 Member
    edited July 2019
    I like your new home page
  • Jordan061102Jordan061102 Posts: 3,918 Member
    You guys are so much better than EA. Can't believe it...
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  • PrincipleOfEntropyPrincipleOfEntropy Posts: 389 Member
    This is so much better! I like the collapsible DLC option, it makes things feel tidier for me. Most importantly it's easy on the eyes, which was my main concern with the actual redesign. The blue is much fairer with the gradients used and a little more reminiscent of past entries. The Sims pop against the remaining white, the expansions still have their colours for easy differentiation and there's no garish plumbob sitting right alongside the existing one from before the rebrand in an obvious fashion. There's no wasted space either.

    The fact that you and others have created better looking designs in such a short space of time says a lot.
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  • icmnfrshicmnfrsh Posts: 18,789 Member
    I like how much cleaner this design is, and how the EPs retain their unique color. It makes me wonder if Maxis even bothered consulting actual graphic designers when they did the new things, given that a lot of designers (and people in general) hate it
    Don't manhandle the urchin. He's not for sale. FIND YOUR OWN! - Xenon the Antiquarian, Dragon Age II

    Race Against the Clock: Can your elder sim turn back the clock before their time runs out?
  • Sigzy05Sigzy05 Posts: 19,406 Member
    edited July 2019
    That UI feels outdated since it's based on the beta version of TS4 and so, it doesn't fit with the rest of the game's current UI. But in regards to the layout it's much better! Really good job. And I love that we can see the save games on the main menu instead of all that marketing carp or "build your bundle" and trailers for the packs. Also really like that we can hide away the "your collection page". TBH it looks like you put much more effort in it than whoever EA hired and I like that.
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  • SelinaKylesSelinaKyles Posts: 4,337 Member
    I’d actually appreciate this one more than the new one
  • CupidCupid Posts: 3,623 Member
    I think I still prefer the way it is now the most. I just really like that clean, minimalist aesthetic. But I do like yours better than the redesign.
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  • izecsonizecson Posts: 2,875 Member
    Everything you done above is awesome, Eaxis should hire you.
    ihavemultiplegamertags
  • IcewolfIcewolf Posts: 709 Member
    That looks so much better! I'm in love!

    I really hope the actual home menu and loading screens aren't final and that they use some of the feedback from people here.
  • ArzekialArzekial Posts: 665 Member
    I like your UI better. I also like the fact it's darker and would probably be able to see the progress circle better. I don't know why they thought that light green on white was a good idea.
  • nerdfashionnerdfashion Posts: 5,947 Member
    HOLD UP- When did CAS become so ugly? I don't remember seeing THAT beast! ARGHHHH
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  • Sigzy05Sigzy05 Posts: 19,406 Member
    HOLD UP- When did CAS become so ugly? I don't remember seeing THAT beast! ARGHHHH

    It's from TS4 Beta.
    mHdgPlU.jpg?1
  • Gabe_ozGabe_oz Posts: 1,880 Member
    HOLD UP- When did CAS become so ugly? I don't remember seeing THAT beast! ARGHHHH

    That CAS screenshot is from the alpha build that they showed at Gamescom 2013 after announcing the game
  • nerdfashionnerdfashion Posts: 5,947 Member
    Gabe_oz wrote: »
    HOLD UP- When did CAS become so ugly? I don't remember seeing THAT beast! ARGHHHH

    That CAS screenshot is from the alpha build that they showed at Gamescom 2013 after announcing the game

    Oh good, it's from the dark ages.
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  • SimAlexandriaSimAlexandria Posts: 4,845 Member
    I'm not a fan of the UI or CAS, but I really love what you've done with the main screen and icons. As for the plumbob, I love the new version coming out, but don't like the blue background. Not too picky though as I don't watch my game load, I do something while it does haha.
  • Gabe_ozGabe_oz Posts: 1,880 Member
    Icewolf wrote: »
    That looks so much better! I'm in love!

    I really hope the actual home menu and loading screens aren't final and that they use some of the feedback from people here.

    I really do hope they take some feedback too. I just honestly dont understand how it all went through design, approval and reveal without someone going "wait a minute..."
  • wamayeliwamayeli Posts: 147 Member
    I love your main menu. MUCH better than the new EA version. You are very talented.
  • citysimmercitysimmer Posts: 5,950 Member
    edited July 2019
    I really like the home screen you made, especially the "Your Recent Games" part.
    Proud black simmer 🖤
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  • ceyricceyric Posts: 1,584 Member
    I love it! And of course, seeing that render makes me so nostalgic haha. Throwback to when they released renders to hype us up for TS4's release!
    keep on keepin' on
  • AnnLee87AnnLee87 Posts: 2,475 Member
    Great Job! Though ... I really like the rebranding that we are getting on Tue.
  • Sid1701D9Sid1701D9 Posts: 4,718 Member
    edited July 2019
    You can rebrand a product all you want but if it still acts and behaves like the product it was the rebranding is basicly emitting that the game is tanking, in an economy where people are happy a black out causes a party in New York, but when they are not happy a riot. The major problem is they once again misjudged the majority of the userbase for the Sims game, that is why they are releasing it to console, they need more money to release more content. The fact they have partnered with Machino says something is up for a stuff pack. Machino is only popular in some population centers where that kind of stuff is hot and trendy, but other places a bit slow may think its tacky and untastful. H&M was different because everyone know what it was, it was bread into our western cultural like Coke and Pespi and Mcdonalds and Taco Bell everyone knows what it is if you just display the logo without the name.

    Edit: I am not saying the game is dying its just not reaching the majority of the market. Island paradise for TS3 didn't even reach the majority of the market, but you got to remember Island paradise came after University.
    Sid1701d-"I love my life, live my life and live to play, laugh and have fun."

    "Love will Fight, Love will Win and Love will Survive."
  • LivinityLivinity Posts: 455 Member
    It looks really good! I wish we had a "Recent Games" menu like this.
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