Turns out the Web rumors were true for once. In a meeting last Friday afternoon in Twitter’s San Francisco office, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone told me that the company had hired ex-Google Visual Design Lead Douglas Bowman to be the company’s new creative director.
Bowman will replace Stone, who was acting as Twitter’s creative director. “The Twitter Web page looks pretty simple,” says Stone. “But from our perspective the design needs a lot of work.”
This is a great hire for Twitter, and more proof that Twitter has replaced Facebook as the tech industry’s hottest startup. Bowman probably could have joined Facebook if he wanted. But the talented designer, who used to work at Wired News, clearly sees a bigger opportunity at Twitter, not only from a design perspective but perhaps from a monetary one as well.
Bowman will be a much-needed presence as Twitter expands and tries to handle the enormous design challenge of helping Twitter users to manage the increasingly large amount of information flowing through the Twittersphere.
Bowman caused a bit of a stir when he announced his departure from Google in late March. In a candid post on the blog of his design consultancy stopdesign, Bowman said he left Google because of what he described as the company’s slavish obsession with data.
“I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case,” wrote Bowman. “I can’t operate in an environment like that. I’ve grown tired of debating such minuscule design decisions. There are more exciting design problems in this world to tackle.”
Not surprisingly, it appears as if Bowman digs Twitter. He seems to have joined the service on or around March in 2007. His first tweet appears to have been posted from, what else, South by SouthWest. “mellowing at the Driskill,” wrote Bowman. “my lord there’s a lot of people at sxsw this year.”
But Bowman is far from prolific or Scobel-like. He only has published 401 tweets over the last two years. Apparently, Bowman has to work for a living.
He is pretty popular, though. Bowman currently has 3,677 followers yet he himself only follows 93 people. Among the select crew of people that Bowman tracks are: San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Biz Stone, Tina Fey, designer Derek Powazek, Google senior vice president Jeff Huber and blogger Anil Dash.
Tags: Biz Stone, Douglas Bowman, Facebook, Google, twitter
March 30, 2009 at 11:28 pm |
Make that fake Tina Fey. She said in an interview she doesn’t use twitter
March 30, 2009 at 11:46 pm |
[…] (Spencer Ante/Creative Capital) Easy AdSenser by Unreal Spencer Ante / Creative Capital: It’s Official: Twitter Hires Ex-Google Designer Douglas Bowman — Turns out the Web rumors were true for once. In a meeting last Friday […]
March 30, 2009 at 11:55 pm |
dope
March 31, 2009 at 12:04 am |
[…] for Twitter. In a meeting with Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, Business Week’s Associate Editor Spencer Ante was told the company had officially hired the ex-Google lead designer to join Twitter full […]
March 31, 2009 at 12:09 am |
Thanks Steve. I excised the fake Tina Fey from the post!
This is why we need official Twitter accounts.
March 31, 2009 at 1:10 am |
[…] This tweak comes before Twitter could see some significant changes to its overall design. The company recently hired Douglas Bowman to be its new creative director (the role previously held by Stone). Bowman is Google’s former visual design lead, who left the company amid some controversy after a blog post about the design atmosphere at the engineering-driven Google. The move was first rumored by Fast Company last week, and confirmed today by Creative Capital. […]
March 31, 2009 at 3:24 am |
[…] move was first rumored by Fast Company last week, and confirmed today by Creative Capital. “The Twitter Web page looks pretty simple. But from our perspective the design needs a lot of […]
March 31, 2009 at 8:49 am |
[…] It’s Official: Twitter Hires Ex-Google Designer Douglas Bowman […]
March 31, 2009 at 9:25 am |
[…] of a huff two weeks ago, he hinted that he had something else lined up. Turns out, according to a report by Spencer Ante, that Bowman is heading to Twitter, where he will serve as the company’s creative […]
March 31, 2009 at 10:29 am |
🙂 I didn’t know Google had a designer. Their software is ugly and htmlish !
Anyway, if Twitter likes the minimal design…
March 31, 2009 at 3:30 pm |
[…] Twitter has hired a new creative director to look at the site’s design and possible changes, according to the folks over at Creative Capital. Former Google Visual Design Lead Douglas Bowman is joining the team, Creative Capital reports, […]
March 31, 2009 at 4:20 pm |
[…] But don’t feel bad for Bowman. The hottest tech company out there right now has picked him up. Twitter has tapped Bowman to be their Creative Director. […]
March 31, 2009 at 7:00 pm |
[…] So much for Twitter being a source of real-time news! Nearly three weeks after Valleywag first reported the startup’s poaching of top Google designer Doug Bowman, cofounder Biz Stone confirms the hire. […]
April 1, 2009 at 1:02 am |
[…] It’s Official: Twitter Hires Ex-Google Designer Douglas Bowman « Creative Capital Wow, Ex Google designer hired by Twitter (tags: google twitter blog design) […]
April 2, 2009 at 12:07 am |
[…] It’s Official: Twitter Hires Ex-Google Designer Douglas Bowman Turns out the Web rumors were true for once. In a meeting last Friday afternoon in Twitter’s San Francisco […] […]
April 11, 2009 at 8:50 pm |
[…] Official: U.S. Social Networking Sites See Slow Down It’s Official: Twitter Hires Ex-Google Designer Douglas Bowman Part 6: Slouching Through the Great Depression Sprint CEO Dan Hesse Speaks About Custom Service […]
April 15, 2009 at 11:33 am |
This topic is quite hot on the Internet at the moment. What do you pay the most attention to when choosing what to write ?
April 18, 2009 at 4:50 am |
[…] this month Gawker kicked off rumours that Bowman would leave Google for a new gig at Twitter. Creative Capital claimed to have confirmed the new hire yesterday following discussions with […]
July 8, 2009 at 8:44 pm |
Looks like Bowman made the right choice for sure! Can’t imagine having to argue over a pixel’s width in a border!
November 18, 2009 at 10:54 pm |
[…] web client. These are ways that Twitter is attempting to draw back people to using the web service. A couple of months ago Twitter even hired an ex-Google web designer to spruce of their web interface, and let me tell you something, it looks a hell of a lot better […]
July 9, 2010 at 6:18 am |
Looks like Bowman made the right choice for sure! Can’t imagine having to argue over a pixel’s width in a border!