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Published January 15th 2022
Daily Brief - The Friday Edition (Jan 14, 2022)
The 10 days ahead: TOGGLE Leading Indicator
The TOGGLE Leading Indicator is the aggregated indicator of all TOGGLE insights for stocks in the US market
Last week the leading indicator plunged deep into negative territory, correctly forecasting a drawdown in S&P 500 - which was arguably compounded by a strong CPI print.
This week the indicator is back within the neutral band [-0.1 to +0.1].
General Interest - How Robinhood is redefining corporate media design
Every week we endeavour to bring you one high quality article post from around the internet, of general interest.
Robinhood is a revolutionary company when UI comes into play. They ventured where no one had gone before - for example, they made charts without the Y axis.
And now they’re leading the trend in design also in a different space. But let’s take a step back. Let’s go to the early 2010’s.
The first part of the last decade saw a revolution in UI design.
In 2013 Apple ditched skeuomorphic design for abstract icons characterised by lots of gradients.
In 2014 Google introduced Material Design, going the flat way and removing most gradients.
Google effectively ushered in the age of Corporate Memphis, which is the style of flat people so popular with Big Tech. Shown below for example, you can see Webull’s surfer
A paragon of the style is the German animation studio Kurtzgesagt, whose YT channel is followed by 17 million people.
Launched in 2013, Kurtzgesagt captured the zeitgeist of the decade;. With a very distinctive use of curvy lines, the studio provided a benchmark for designers worldwide.
However, nothing lasts forever and changes were underway even as early as 2017, when Facebook unveiled its version of flat: Alegria.
The image above makes use of lines again - both for borders and to add details like eyes.
Facebook’s Alegria did not really catch fire, but it laid out the groundwork for a fantastic comeback spearheaded by Robinhood.
After years and years of borderless and flat vector surfaces, it was time for a change. Robinhood showed us the future via the time-honored tradition of plundering the past.
Have you ever heard of Moebius? No, we’re not referring to the string that folds on itself, named after the eponymous matematician. We’re talking about Jean Giraud, the French illustrator.
His work is stunning and characterized by two things that were markedly absent in corporate design in the last decade: borders and gradients.
The designers hired by Robinhood must have felt that Moebius truly pointed in the right direction, because…well, let’s say they’ve not made an effort of originality.
Look at this:
The agency that conducted the branding exercise gives no acknowledgement to Moebius on their project page, but…well, judge for yourself.
Daily Brief - The Friday Edition (Jan 14, 2022)
