I had the same reaction. Like WT* is this ugly…thing. It could be a really bad joke, but 1st of April was week ago.
Before it looked like really good learning site. If the web looked like this when I first visited it, I would never joined it…
As others already mentioned, it looks like bad joke or some elementary school homework project. And the “eye burner” is also really a thing.
Also whose idea was to make all lesson options the same color??? Like for what reason? Before it was so easy to distinguish the type of excercises.
I totally agree with SKKreativ. As a user of Memrise for the past several years I was not a fan to see the introduction of Ziggy and the move away from the “garden” theme. Now this new theme… this gold / yellow and whatever just has this empty lifeless feel to it. The implementation is also terribly half baked. Although if I I were to point out one good thing, it would simply be that the areas which have not changed do not look absolutely terrible yet.
There is the saying, if it is not broke, do not fix it. Memrise if you hired a marketing consultancy to advise you on this change, try to get your money back, and more importantly dump the consultancy.
Despite the perhaps overly harsh albeit genuine criticism above, please… truly consider either going back to what we had prior to this hideous change, or, even better, bringing back the “garden” theme–at least on desktop version.
Update: So Memrise did hire a consultancy…
https://blog.memrise.com/memrise-has-a-new-look/
(Kind of makes me feel bad to pay for a pro membership and know that some portion of my subscription cost is funding undesired design changes rather than actual improvements to the platform… 
)
And what’s the idea of cropped course images , looks like a bug even if I suspect it was a design decision.
The contrast levels between columns and backgrounds are too weak, stress on eyes to see the borders and I’m using a retina MacBookPro.
Adding words to courses do not work due to the again image bitmask covering the submit button.
Well, I looked at the Duolingo site and was never impressed.
People have complained about Google Material design but the contrast and color schemes for let’s say new Calendar are good - no in your face strong blobs of color. I would say get rid of the yellow or tone it down to something more like a pantone 2001C yellow and you fix most of the complaints in this thead.
If some Memrise admin is reading this, please, for the love of GOD, let the user toggle old/new design. I really despise it, and even though I learn better on here, I might have to go back over to quizlet to learn all my course vocab.
The version I like best is the garden theme. It makes sense. It encourages growth (literally). It’s pretty. Please at least allow an option to go back to the old design Memrise!
Not gonna lie, this new style is trash - i hate it. I prefer the old layout, design and colors.
Terrible change. I understand desire of refreshing but this refresh went in weird and creepy direction. I’m joining to the voices asking for option of choice. But to be honest - my hopes - not so high 
I rather believe in community, that somebody with some time, fantasy and warm feelings towards CSS will prepare some “patch” to cover this ugliness.
Can you explain to me why you always choose to do the worst of the changes with no additional benefit?
I seriously thought the site had been hacked. Those “blob” shapes around our usernames/levels and the course icons just look…warped and seriously amateurish.
Orange/black/white is fine as a colour scheme (if a little dated and derivative from AWS), but the blue doesn’t match with it at all. Thankfully at least while revising/learning words, the old design returns, but then at the end you get some weird mishmash of the two (no nightmarish blob shapes though, which is a relief).
Sorry, but whoever was in charge of this re-design really should be considering another field of work entirely…
That’s just terrible. I admire those who have the patience to explain it in detail.
Yeah, I refreshed the page today and thought the site had failed to load properly. This design is remarkably horrendous. It’s incredible that you guys managed to make something this horrific and thought it was actually a good change.
A truly terrible design. Huge step backwards.
I’d offer constructive criticism, but the fact is I don’t know where to begin. I’d say just roll back to the old design.
Maybe the site has been hacked.
I got a notification on Memrise saying to update the app to see the new color scheme, so I checked on the Google Play Store and it says my app is up to date, even though I have the old color scheme. I’m fine with that, but just wondering if maybe the fact that I have Android Q instead of Android Pie is the reason it’s staying on the old version. Has this happened to anyone else?
What’s with all the irregular oval shapes…?
That is such a bad design. Especially for me, I work with web design and development and this is just jarring to look at.
What’s with the “blob” on the main page, above our avatar? And the blobby course pictures. It makes no sense whatsoever.
Through the years Memrise has had a really decent design and interface, but just recently it would seem the whole web team has been replaced with inexperienced amateurs. Sorry for being so blunt, but…it’s disturbing. 
Orange and black, the colours of a wasp. A very off-putting and ugly colour combination.
Why do we need the numbers all wonky???
What purpose could that possibly serve???
I have just written an almost identical post!
I think the new look just looks ridiculous. Luckily it’s just aesthetics and not functionality.
