Uber EatsCopied

Uber Eats began with a cold-pressed juice delivered in Toronto in December 2015. Two years later it was in about 200 cities across 30 countries, with some 80,000 restaurant partners, up from 20,000 a year earlier, and was planning further worldwide expansion. To mark the anniversary, Uber said it would introduce a new look celebrating the endless possibilities of food with more colour and shapes, starting with the app launcher.

The fork icon went. In its place is a flat green rounded square with Uber Eats written on it, putting what the service does, and the word eats, front and centre. Around it, Uber Eats' global creative director told Firstpost, the brand would use identifiable geometric shapes to tell the story that the app covers many kinds of food and restaurants, and move beyond a single green to multiple colours that could be tuned to each city. The refreshed app was released worldwide on 7 December 2017.

Uber's head of research told Skift the look was meant to reflect the endless possibilities of food. In India, where the service had launched only seven months earlier, Firstpost asked whether a refresh so soon would alienate users; the local head said the point was a seamless experience for people moving between countries.

Skift's report gave the scale behind the refresh. On the service's second anniversary, Uber Eats was in 200 cities with 80,000 restaurant partners, up from 20,000 little more than a year earlier, and the new app was built with a global audience in mind. Head of research Jeanette Mellinger said the look and logo were meant to reflect the endless possibilities of food, with Eats given much more prominence. That emphasis is the real story: a delivery business growing fast enough to stop being a footnote to the ride app.

The new icon is the most literal possible answer to the problem of an app grid: write the name on it. It is effective and a little blunt, trading the fork's charm for recognition at a glance. The colourful shapes do more to give the brand a personality than the icon does.