Sims 4 got a rebranding on this update. It has included a new marketinng design, a new loading and main screen, and reformulated colors for all EPs, GPs and SPs.
However, people weren't that happy with a couple of things, mainly being the shiny "I got blind after this" loading screen.

What do you think about it?

OPINION INCOMING

I feel like the game indeed looks modern, although I have a feeling that I will miss the old style in the future ^_^; The Sims has a huge following, now bigger than ever, so improving and changing is essential for the game's company... And about the loading screen, it looks nice! If I turn down the screen's brightness, that is XD

Dislike the rebranding, as I find it ugly.

Particularly hate the recolors of the DLC covers.

I think the new design isn't actually that bad, the problem for me is more the fact that the title screen's blues and greens are very different from the actual game's whites, which kinda became the sims 4's "thing" at this point. If we only got the blue, I think it wouldn't even be a problem at all, but the previous white one just suited the entire game a lot better (with emotions and their colors being the main gameplay addition, and white being all the colors combined).

I don't care. They fixed vampires that they screwed up with the update before this, but even that someone had a mod to fix. It was waste of 10 minutes of my life for it to download. And the off grid lot trait is still broken imho. the off grid shower worked once, then it says "off grid" and won't work. Where's my windmill? Where's my solar panels? And I want my Mr. Fusion back NOW!!!

It's an absolute abomination. The game already looked "modern." The new style like a very sleek 80's design.

I think what's incredibly wild is that this "rebrand" is objectively bad. Not like "some of us really dislike this" and "some of us like this" kind of vibe the sims 4 initially had. While that may still be the case, I feel like I could speak with someone who has authority in marketing, rebranding and design and they would have legitimate talking points on how terrible a design decision this was and how the old version was fine.
I am fully prepared to argue about how ugly and bad this redesign is. OBJECTIVELY. Color theory, past references, human psychology and vision, interface design, user experience..etc.. the whole shebang.

Hell no. 80s design is nowhere near this gaudy. I've only ever seen colors this saturated in print, and I'm pretty sure that designing anything this awful would take enough time and effort that you'd realize it sucks.

The problem is that nowadays you can design a whole screen or page in 2-3 minutes and call it a day, meaning you design faster than you can reasonably think. Try designing with physically sliced pieces of paper and glue, with pencil and markers or hell, if you're really fancy, try scanning it into your computer and navigating through the fuzzy user interface with your clunky wired light pen. In my experience, you won't even be done setting these up by the time you'd be done making your "artwork" in PS or Illustrator.

I can guarantee you that having time to think is the best way to prevent these sorts of happy little clusterfucks. Personally I'm really glad I never get around to finishing anything, because the longer I put it off, the more opportunities I'll get to completely redo it first. Which brings me to the best advice I can offer anyone who's also creatively inclined: don't be afraid to bin something you don't like, no matter how much time or effort went into it.

TBH, navigating management usually gives these time to percolate and for any flaws to become apparent- this design job must have been 100% directed and approved by the Sims management team.

I bet that at least a good number of the actual staff involved in the nitty-gritty creation of this stuff (designers, UI staff ) would probably say that the redesign is by no means a good one.


Now that's another extreme- overthinking a piece is the best way to kill it! IMO refinement usually has diminishing returns, and after a certain point you just need to accept it as-is and move on.

Whatever it is, it doesn’t really work. It doesn’t really flow with anything. It’s very inflated.

Minimalism is a preferred method of design because it works. It’s cheap, accessible, and (imho) attractive. You can play with colors and get very big impact. TS4 was fine the way it was. Those solid white backgrounds were inoffensive and and perfect, allowing the box art to stand out. TS2 has a similar practice with the solid background colors (and TS1 to a lesser degree).

Honestly, the rebrand doesn’t even work with the rest of the game - you go from very busy and active to muted and spacious everywhere else.

I feel like the people who dislike it, hate it; and the ones who like it, love it. Two very extreme points (just take a look at the chat on Twitch when they announced the rebranding and you'll see the ones who have loved it)...

The color palette? Could have been better, that is certain. Color theory, do your thing, girl.
The new plumbob? Eh, feel like I could get used to it.
Will EA hear us? Well, they have heard us for the loading screen after "Players with a wide array of neurological and/or visual impairments have been reporting adverse reactions to the new look . . . " .

I'm so unsure if the Sims 4 text logo is supposed to be completely Dark Blue or White, Is is Dark Blue on the main screen, yet White on the cover (Understandable otherwise logo won't stand out), While I don't like either, I think I prefer the white, as other than a white background, Dark Blue does not blend too well with any other color background at all.

The new style is much more minimalist than the old one was.....doesn't get much simpler than a plain solid background color. Problem is that you shouldn't just wantonly combine low-contrast layouts with high-contrast colours. Those colours are meant to draw attention to a particular element of the design: if the design has no such elements, and you're using those colours anyway, you're essentially drawing attention to both everything and nothing and our brains don't love that.

Another big no-no of design is being too busy with your template, and this rebranding definitely is. Good design is meant to be instantly recognizable, even at a quick glance. In the case of marketing, you want a potential customer to look at something in passing and have it stand out to them at a moment's notice.

Take the old pack covers for instance. They were clear, concise and attractive. The designs themselves flowed nicely with the rest of the game. The new ones, as have been stated, are far too gaudy. The Sims on the covers themselves take up far too much space on the artwork. Poor color choices, and a lack of distinction. The names of the packs are no longer front and center but off to the side, which makes a design read oddly. Whereas before you'd have gone top to bottom, starting with the name of the pack and type, then the Sims, and the pack icon at the bottom, it now has its design elements all over the place, and is no longer easily understood at a cursory glance.

So yeah, reeks of bad design. As pretenshus said, you can like or not like all you want, but -objectively- this rebranding will never be more than extremely mediocre Entry to Design 101 stuff, the kind of thing you'd throw away once you knew better.

If I didn't know any better, I would say the Maxis staff, had an in-house competition for their kids to come up with the new designs and colour scheme. And what's that philosophy about kids baking the cake? They'll put every ingredient found in the kitchen cupboards because that's how a child's mind works. No idea of moderation. No idea of less is more.

Trouble is, only a couple of kids, one kid actually, must have put their colour scheme forward for entry to competition, so it became the instant winner by default.

Because there's no way on Earth you'll convince me a team of adults not only came up with that, but gave it a green light. Really? Shit....

There was me thinking college and university prepared adults minds not to do this everything-in-the-kitchen-cupboards shit. Headache-inducing blues are not the stuff of less. Definitely the stuff of more. Childish cake making, to say the least.

I haven't patched yet. And I, my eyes, are holding out in gladness unit l I do have to patch, you know, to get those proper fixes, not mind-melting, eyeball-blistering rebrand colours. Kids, what you gonna do, eh? And the TwistedMexi mod on his patreon mods looks fave to get the rebrand colour scheme crap and odd layout designs back to the old, familiar ways once I do have to inevitably patch.

Maxis cocked their leg up on the desk, pulled out their old 32 revolver and said watch this shit. Five toes, six bullets. Bang! Shot off big toe. Bang! Shot off next biggest toe. Got four more bullets and three more toes, we can't miss! What the fuck dimension did Maxis wake up in? Not the same dimension I wake up in. Their colours are all fucking wrong for this, my, our, dimension. Frikken shoot-yourself-in-the-foot lunatics.

More proof that EA are shape-shifting aliens, (That don't need toes) like the English royalty! I'm convinced of the conspiracy theory now more than ever!!!

I dislike the Plumbob, I tried to give it a chance and the more it showed up in the loading screen the more I want the old one back. The plumbob has never changed that much since Sims 1 was released. I hope they don't change the sims plumbob in-game, I don't know if I can handle this much change. Everything else that has been "re-branded" looks tacky and unfortunately, this is nothing more than a ploy to get more people to buy more packs.

Yeah the more a look at it, the more I'm convinced this is the artwork of just one person.

While the scheme does not give me headaches, I do agree it's ugly and unfinished one at that, and actually dreading the next patch, because you can be sure there is many more UI changes to come.

Just finally patched and.........................OMG IMO that new screen is just awful. WTH were they thinking????? I shut the game off immediately and will see what the "fix" is like, and if still so bad, and probably anyway, get/reinstall the mod to go back to the prior one from back when which I liked the most. If it ain't broke.................... good grief.

I played with the new re-branded menu and plumbob for 2 days and then I downloaded TwistedMexi's mod. Thanks for sharing coolpearls1!

I got the mod and installed it also. BYE to the new "improvement"!!!!!!

The Simming community right when the rebrand was shown before release:

I fully understand complaints that the effort that was put into this redesigning should have been put somewhere else, but when it comes to the redesign itself, it doesn't bother me at all. I'm fine with it.

A picture is worth a thousand words and I remembered this item in the game so I believe this should make my feelings of the new design clear:

I don't mind it myself. It's a question of having the correct lighting around to counteract any glare for me. I'd like a choice of alternative colour myself.

I'm a bit worried by those getting migraines. Is it a health hint that they need to stop using their PC or Mac so often, get blue filter glasses or see their doctor? It's sad but maybe the blue screen incident might be doing them a favour.

Me, I've got cataracts forming and I use my commonsense and opticians' advice to avoid screen glare.

I found a thing.
https://lotharihoe.tumblr.com/post/...now-so-i-had-to

Every single one of these are better than what we have now.