Close (X)

Blog

Email Marketing, Business & Monkeys

Chimpy New Login Page

June 22nd, 2009 | by Ben

In case you didn’t notice, we changed the MailChimp login page a little just before Fathers Day…

The new default login page design looks like this:

mailchimp-login-page-default

Which is nice, but nothing all that special. The real nice part is it’s now much easier to swap out the graphic whenever holidays roll around.

Like Fathers Day:

mailchimp-login-page-fathers-day

Some fathers actually wrote in to us yesterday when they noticed the new design. I myself had no idea this was being launched, so it was a nice surprise for me. Got a real chuckle out of little Freddie in “daddy’s” arms.

How we got to this design

In the past, we’ve always modified our MailChimp logo for the holidays.

Kinda like how Google does it (here’s their Father’s Day logo from yesterday):

google-fathers-day

But in the past, our little chimpy mascot was a lot easier to modify. Here’s a collection of different versions of the chimp we’ve used:

faces-of-mailchimp

Um, the one in the center, where he’s all vicious, was only used internally. Our dashboard used to switch over to that chimp whenever we hit new revenue records. Which, back then, meant we’d be going out for a big steak dinner to celebrate.

Anyhoo…

Something changed after we got the chimp re-designed by Jon Hicks (here’s the story of that redesign). We found him a lot harder to modify for the holidays. Mostly because nobody wanted to touch Jon’s awesome work. It just felt sacrilegious. We tried doing some illustrative styled login pages, but even though we’ve got the most talented designers on the planet, it’s just way too much work to match the depth and detail from the new logo every time there’s a holiday (around the globe).

So we decided to get our photochop on (check out Worth1000, who hosts daily PhotoChop contests). Much, much easier to superimpose the chimp on top of a photo. It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s funny, and it’s challenging all at the same time. Speaking of challenges, this format makes it really easy to post user-submitted login screens too (ahem, hint hint wink wink).

Spread the monkey love:
  • TwitThis
  • Digg
  • Facebook
  • del.icio.us
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • description
  • Google
  • LinkedIn
  • Ma.gnolia
  • MisterWong
  • Netvouz
  • NewsVine
  • Slashdot
  • Technorati
  • YahooMyWeb
  • BlinkList
  • Design Float
  • Mixx
  • Pownce
  • Propeller
  • Webnews.de

7 Comments

    • FJ de Kermadec says:

      Another great login page and another great idea from Mailchimp.

      However, with all the (deep and real) respect I have for Jon’s work, the fact that you find the logo works against such customisations, which have always been a key aspect of the Mailchimp brand and a cornerstone of the concept of a “mascot” speaks volumes about the inappropriateness of the new chimp design as a logo. A wonderful illustration for sure, but a logo it is not and a pest it will be to update, too.

      In any case the new login page looks gorgeous!

      • Ben says:

        Hi there FJ, we consider Freddie a “mascot.” Our official “logo” is the scripty logotype you’d see in the top left of our website. Jon put a lot of work into that too, but the ape gets all the attention. :-) Your comment is actually very timely because we’ve just now found the time to put together a “branding doc” to talk about how to handle the logo and the mascot.

    • Jan says:

      Hi mailchimp team, once again: great job! It looks cool.
      The only problem is that the “remeber me” check box doesn’t appear in Internet Explorer 7. It works fine in Firefox.
      Best Regards from the NordicMarketing team in Germany

      • Ben says:

        Hmm, perhaps an IE7 css file didn’t get published. We’ll look into it. Thanks for the heads-up!

    • Jan says:

      You fixed it! Thanks for quick reaction!

    • Andy Ciordia says:

      We were just commenting on how pretty the new login is. As a designer I’m usually not fond of real distant drop shadows but you all twisted the idea very nicely and the effect is perfect. I’ll catalog the idea for another mashup one day. ;-)

Leave a Reply

* indicated required
http://www.mailchimp.com/nonrestrictiveocean.php