Unfortunately, this also means that I’m leaving an amazing group of people at Zoosk, who’ve made the last two years an incredible ride:

Shayan is easily one of the best CEOs I’ve ever worked with. Even when he has back-to-back meetings all day, he somehow still finds time to walk the dev pool and help out. His responses and design reviews are always open and thoughtful, and taught me a lot about how to evaluate my own work.

Alex, co-CEO and resident cardboard tube samurai, can eat a giant gummi bear in one sitting (“It’s good for you,” he’d say). He can also make Google Analytics tell you its deepest darkest secrets.

John always pushed me to think harder and longer about design and user experience. Always ready with more questions than any normal person should have, he always thinks bigger and better.

Jeff went from working on Zoosk.com to teaching himself Flex and writing an entire chat client. He also has better hue-recognition than I do.

A man of few words, Brad is great at internalizing a problem and coming out with a great solution on the other side. I You’ll find him at Mission Cliffs or Planet Granite climbing V10s and such (spoiler alert: I think he’s Spiderman).

Of course, these aren’t he only people who I’ve worked with over the past two years. When I started, there were only six people at Zoosk (seen above), including myself. When I left, I’m pretty sure we had over fifty, with each person as quality as the last. There isn’t one person at Zoosk who I wouldn’t love to work with again. From rooftop keggers to boat parties to having a song written about Zoosk by T-Pain and Flo-Rida, it’s been one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had. Thanks to everyone at Zoosk for making the last two years so memorable.

They’re so close together that they could easily be mistaken for one another. So why have two colors at all? Well, knowing Google, this isn’t some errant design decision. I’d say it’s safe to assume that both these colors (along with a plethora of others, no doubt) were tested thoroughly and perform the best.

So why do these colors work? It’s hard to say. What’s important to note, though, is that they work for Google specifically. The reason Google uses those two shades of blue is that those shades are good for Google, not because they are the end-all-be-all choice for every web site. Anyone who lifts a color scheme without a really compelling reason (example: Google’s link colors really do test best on your own project) is doing a disservice to themselves and their client. As designers, it’s our job to do the legwork and find what works best.