If you visit the .com pages of Microsoft, Nokia, Sony, Apple, and Amazon, you’ll see the usual bursts of color and promotional elements — that is, business as usual.
But if you visit the Chinese home pages of these five companies, you’re going to see the following:
Although white more commonly signifies death and mourning in China, black is a more effective way of expressing grief on the white background of a Web page.
Google China and Baidu have turned their logos black as well.
It’s just a shame more of the world won’t see these sites — as I found them quite moving. Everything about China seems to be beyond comprehension, including, unfortunately, this earthquake.
Tweet this post on Twitter
Subscribe to Global by Design
6 responses so far ↓
1 Sebastian C. Scholz - Web goes black in China // May 24, 2008 at 5:42 pm
[...] About… Web goes black in China May 24th 08 globalbydesign has an interesting collection (part 1, part 2) of corporate websites in china that recently went grayscale or black. This way companies [...]
2 Chinese websites mourn : Tightgrid // May 27, 2008 at 11:36 pm
[...] corporations and multinationals doing business in China toned down the colors on their websites after the devastating Sichuan earthquake. Most opted for black. Although white more commonly [...]
3 GEOTYPOGRAFIKA » Blog Archive » Yunker / Website Mourning in China // May 29, 2008 at 3:13 pm
[...] Via John Yunker’s Global by Design, the Microsoft China splash page. Yunker shows that many other international companies have [...]
4 Webdesign wird emotional | heroicapproach // May 30, 2008 at 1:34 pm
[...] hier und hier. No Comments, Comment or [...]
5 Web Sites Go Black In China : New Communications Review // Jun 3, 2008 at 4:25 am
[...] If you visit the .com pages of Microsoft, Nokia, Sony, Apple, and Amazon, you’ll see the usual bursts of color and promotional elements — that is, business as usual. But if you visit the Chinese home pages of these five companies, you’re going to see the following: [...]
6 Hit black on the way to green. « Kaber Vasuki // Jul 12, 2008 at 10:48 am
[...] I searched for black versions of google (on the real google :() I found this other blog saying that the Chinese versions of many sites (Microsoft, Sony, Google etc.) went black as a sign [...]
Leave a Comment