The Netflix app was starting to look dated especially with the advent of google's material design influencing pretty much everything. So Netflix set out with the design challenge of revamping the app icon. Originally the marketing team in Beverly Hills hired an agency to come up with several ideas for the icon, however after months of going through thousands of designs, they decided to come to give us, the design team, a shot with fresh eyes.
I initially started off with sketches and sought inspiration from pretty much anything I could get my hands on. From movie studio icons to TV bumpers to icon styles that were popular at the time. I went through pages and pages of sketches, but quickly the idea of incorporating a film strip started to emerge.
I took several ideas and started manipulating them in illustrator. Below you can see the evolution of the ideas that ultimately led me to the final idea of incorporating the film strip into the "N" of Netflix. We took these ideas and sent them back to the marketing team in Beverly Hills, where they handed our designs to the agency in hopes that it'd spark some ideas.
Below you can see the original app icon compared with the new one. While, I believe that creating the latest icon was definitely a team effort across multiple departments and design agencies, I take pride that some of my initial concepts helped drive the final design of the Netflix app icon.
