Google Arts and Culture just got a redesign that will get you excited about living in the past

Google’s Arts & Culture app is getting its very own “Material You” redesign, which should already be available to you if you have an Android device (iOS coming soon!) The app’s new features encourage you to explore topics like art, food, fashion, craft, and science more than you probably have in the past since they’re front and center using Google’s now common card style grid. You can also browse through artifacts, cultural stories, and refine your exploration by place, topic, and creator.

The daily “Inspire” feed is another addition that promises personalized, fresh content every time you visit. Arts & Culture has over 3,000 partners across the globe, so this tab at the bottom of the navigation tray is a great idea to get you interested in something without putting too much effort in.

One of the most intriguing features of the redesign is the Google’s injection of AI-generated art and poetry activities. You can create artwork and poems with the same PaLM 2 Model of artificial intelligence that Bard is using right now. Then, you can share your creations as postcards.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but by marrying modern design with the beauty of our culture and history, I think Google’s going in the right direction. I can see how anyone fond of the old design, and even the old logo with the museum on it would be upset by all of these changes, but I think it’s less important to preserve a design that harkens to its original vision for the app if it means the tech giant can get more people tapping and scrolling through the past. We need to appreciate history, and not repeat it, and neither of those things happens if we don’t take the time to explore it!