Facebook Friends Icon

After a long time but at the right time facebook happens to fine tune its icon about “Friends”. Every visitor and facebook family member looks at this icon on top right corner of main page. There used to be a couple where a man was in front and a lady was on the back side and that did not pinch the facebook family, they were comfortable but facebook’s Caitlin Winner, Design Manager was for a change and brought the woman to the front and took the man behind her. It was not more than fine tuning or may be a step clicking towards woman empowerment. 

Caitlin Winner however brought the woman in front, did minor improvement in looks of her hair and also worked on the “little chip” seen in the shoulder. She did it not by a plan but did it because of a thought that crossed her mind for improvement. For some reason in back of her mind the chip kept pinching her and she did make improvement. The lady used to look like the helmet of Darth Vader that George Lucas had once created. Winner worked on few options like adding a pony tail, wearing curly hair but ultimately she opted somewhat hair in bob shape.   

Later when this much was done, Winner turned to man for a more pleasing look. She did a little bit of change to his hair and added bit of slope to his shoulders. This way a new man appeared with the new lady. Winner also addressed other icons like a single man for adding friend. Again why women should be on back, she added a single female silhouette for adding friend too.

In updating the man, she was also able to notice that there many groups on Facebook where a single, action figured male could represent himself. Now that she noticed there were men only in the figures presented at the icons, she also drew a female silhouette for icons. This is perhaps the thinking from facebook COO’s bestselling book on woman empowerment. Winner changed size and order of female silhouette too. Ultimately answering to Mother Nature she reduced size of female silhouette, making it smaller than man’s but kept her in front of man.. In past two men and a woman were in the ‘groups’ icon while woman was in the back but now she placed the lady in front.

There was a difference of opinion between designers, company rule and Winner but new icons were implemented giving things a new look. Winner did not stop at the silhouettes alone. She turned to facebook logo too. The text was slimmed down little bit in a new and fresh type face.