Facebook is spending time working on its visual image lately. Days after releasing their new logo – which is not very different than the previous one – Facebook has now joined the fight for more gender equality with new icons that put women in front.
Also Read: Facebook Changed Its Logo – Did You Notice?
Caitlin Winner, a leading Facebook designer, has been working on the redesign of the ‘friends’ and ‘groups” icons to more fairly represent women.
Winner explained on Medium:
[quote]As a woman, educated at a women’s college, it was hard not to read into the symbolism of the current icon; the woman was quite literally in the shadow of the man, she was not in a position to lean in.[/quote]
In fact, better than give an equal position to women and men, Caitlin went a step further and gave the prominent position to the woman in her redesigned icons.
As a result, the friends icon is now being replaced by her new design on the right:
And a similar change was also applied to the ‘Groups’ icon:
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Social media users, who are usually keen supporters of gender equality changes, did welcome the redesign, even if some acknowledge this is still a very small step towards true gender equality and others clearly think this is not enough:
Facebook's new icon makes a BIG statement for gender equality. http://t.co/apkKiKHmd0 pic.twitter.com/FHJld06ms0
— ELLE Magazine (US) (@ELLEmagazine) July 8, 2015
Facebook's gender-equal icons. It's a start but is it enough? http://t.co/DKMJ8zQBt3 pic.twitter.com/I7XIDe6MhM
— TechRadar (@techradar) July 8, 2015
https://twitter.com/Mick__Nartin/status/618858337350873089
How do you feel about this “gender equality” redesign?
The new redesigned icons are already available on both web version, iOS and Android apps in the US and should roll out worldwide in the coming days.
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