Google logo

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The current Google logo, in use since September 1, 2015 Google 2015 logo.svg
The current Google logo, in use since September 1, 2015

The Google logo appears in numerous settings to identify the search engine company. Google has used several logos over its history, with the first logo created by Sergey Brin using GIMP. A revised logo debuted on September 1, 2015. The previous logo, with slight modifications between 1999 and 2013, was designed by Ruth Kedar, with a wordmark based on the Catull font, an old style serif typeface designed by Gustav Jaeger for the Berthold Type Foundry in 1982. [1]

Contents

The company also includes various modifications or humorous features, such as modifications of their logo for use on holidays, birthdays of famous people, and major events, such as the Olympics. [2] These special logos, some designed by Dennis Hwang, have become known as Google Doodles.

History

In 1997, Larry Page created a computerized version of the Google letters using the free graphics program GIMP. The typeface was changed and an exclamation mark was added mimicking the Yahoo! logo. [3]

"There were a lot of different color iterations", says Ruth Kedar, the graphic designer who developed the now-famous logo in May 1999. "We ended up with the primary colors, but instead of having the pattern go in order, we put a secondary color on the L, which brought back the idea that Google doesn't follow the rules." [4] The font Catull was used, "I was trying to find something that was both traditionally tied to the beautiful fonts in the past and also had a very current and in some ways surprising ways", says Ruth, "I really loved the way that it had these very elegant stems and ascenders and descenders and also had these Serifs that were very, very precise and I wanted something that when you looked at it, it was very clear that it's something you haven't seen before". [5]

In 2010, the Google logo received its first major overhaul since May 31, 1999. The new logo was first previewed on November 8, 2009, [6] and was officially launched on May 6, 2010. [7] It utilizes an identical typeface to the previous logo, but the "o" is distinctly more orange-colored in place of the previously more yellowish "o", as well as a much more subtle shadow rendered in a different shading style.

On September 19, 2013, Google introduced a new "flat" (two-dimensional) logo with a slightly altered color palette. [8] [9] The old 2010 Google logo remained in use on some pages, such as the Google Doodles page, for a period of time. [10] On May 24, 2014, the Google logo was slightly updated with some minor typographical tweaks, with the second 'g' moved right one pixel and the 'l' moved down and right one pixel. [11] [12]

On September 1, 2015, Google introduced a controversial "new logo and identity family" designed to work across multiple devices. [13] [14] [15] The notable difference in the logo is the change in the typeface. The colors remained the same as with the previous logo, however, Google switched to a modern, geometric sans-serif typeface called Product Sans, created in-house at Google (which is also used for the Alphabet logo). [16]

Google Doodles

The Google big logo when a background image/doodle is set on the home page Transparent google logo (2011-2015).png
The Google big logo when a background image/doodle is set on the home page

The first Google Doodle was in honor of the Burning Man Festival of 1998. [17] [18] The doodle was designed by Larry Page and Sergey Brin to notify users of their absence in case the servers crashed. Subsequent Google Doodles were designed by an outside contractor, until Larry and Sergey asked then-intern Dennis Hwang to design a logo for Bastille Day in 2000. [19] [20] Nowadays doodles are designed and published by a team of employees ("doodlers"). [21]

The colorless Google logo used for the funeral of George H. W. Bush on December 8, 2018, as well as the death of Queen Elizabeth II on September 8, 2022, it was also used on Memorial Day starting in May 2019 Google 2015 logo colorless mourning period.svg
The colorless Google logo used for the funeral of George H. W. Bush on December 8, 2018, as well as the death of Queen Elizabeth II on September 8, 2022, it was also used on Memorial Day starting in May 2019

A colorless version of the logo is particularly used on a local homepage in recognition of a major tragedy, often for several days. This design was first used on April 2010 on the Google Poland homepage following the Smolensk air disaster that killed, among others, Polish president Lech Kaczyński. A few days later, the logo was used in China and Hong Kong to pay respects to the victims of the 2010 Qinghai earthquake. [22]

On September 7, 2010, a colorless Google logo going by the name of the "Keystroke Logo" was introduced, which lit up with the standard Google colors as the first 6 letters of a search query were entered. [23]

The colorless logo was used again on December 5, 2018, following the death of George H. W. Bush, [24] [25] on May 27, 2019 for Memorial Day (and every Memorial Day holiday since), and on September 8, 2022, following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. A black version of the logo was used for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II a week later on September 19, 2022. [26]

Favicon

List of Google favicons Google Favicons Nontransparent.png
List of Google favicons
The Google "G" favicon used since September 1, 2015 Google "G" Logo.svg
The Google "G" favicon used since September 1, 2015

Google's favicon from May 31, 1999, to May 29, 2008, was a blue, uppercase "G" on white background. It was accompanied by a border with a red, blue, and a green side.

On May 30, 2008, a new favicon was launched. It showed a lowercase "g" from Google, colored in blue against a white background, and originally was intended to be a part of a larger set of icons developed for better scalability on mobile devices. [27]

A new favicon was launched on January 9, 2009. It included a left-aligned white "g" with background areas colored in red, green, blue and yellow, with the top, bottom, and left edges of the "g" cropped. [28] [29] It was based on a design by André Resende, a computer science undergraduate student at the University of Campinas in Brazil. He submitted it for a contest launched by Google in June 2008 to receive favicon submissions. The official Google blog stated: "His placement of a white 'g' on a color-blocked background was highly recognizable and attractive, while seeming to capture the essence of Google". [28]

The favicon used from August 13, 2012, to August 31, 2015, showed the small letter "g" in white, centered on a solid light blue background.

As of September 1,2015, a new favicon was launched in conjunction with the new logo design that day, which shows a capital letter "G" in the tailor-made font for the new logo, with segments colored red, yellow, green, and blue. [30]

Related Research Articles

In typography, a serif is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts. A typeface or "font family" making use of serifs is called a serif typeface, and a typeface that does not include them is sans-serif. Some typography sources refer to sans-serif typefaces as "grotesque" or "Gothic", and serif typefaces as "roman".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helvetica</span> Neo-grotesque sans-serif typeface

Helvetica, also known by its original name Neue Haas Grotesk, is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthew Carter</span> British type designer (born 1937)

Matthew Carter is a British type designer. A 2005 New Yorker profile described him as 'the most widely read man in the world' by considering the amount of text set in his commonly used typefaces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emphasis (typography)</span> Typographical distinction

In typography, emphasis is the strengthening of words in a text with a font in a different style from the rest of the text, to highlight them. It is the equivalent of prosody stress in speech.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Johnston (typeface)</span> Sans-serif typeface

Johnston is a sans-serif typeface designed by and named after Edward Johnston. The typeface was commissioned in 1913 by Frank Pick, commercial manager of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London, as part of his plan to strengthen the company's corporate identity. Johnston was originally created for printing, but it rapidly became used for the enamel station signs of the Underground system as well.

Raymond Larabie is a Canadian designer of TrueType and OpenType computer fonts. He owns Typodermic Fonts, which distributes both commercially licensed and shareware/freeware fonts.

A Google Doodle is a special, temporary alteration of the logo on Google's homepages intended to commemorate holidays, events, achievements, and notable historical figures. The first Google Doodle honored the 1998 edition of the long-running annual Burning Man event in Black Rock City, Nevada, and was designed by co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to notify users of their absence in case the servers crashed. Early marketing employee Susan Wojcicki then spearheaded subsequent Doodles, including an alien landing on Google and additional custom logos for major holidays. Google Doodles were designed by an outside contractor, cartoonist Ian David Marsden until 2000, when Page and Brin asked public relations officer Dennis Hwang to design a logo for Bastille Day. Since then, a team of employees called Doodlers have organized and published the Doodles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franklin Gothic</span> Family of sans-serif fonts

Franklin Gothic and its related faces are a large family of sans-serif typefaces in the industrial or grotesque style developed in the early years of the 20th century by the type foundry American Type Founders (ATF) and credited to its head designer Morris Fuller Benton. "Gothic" was a contemporary term meaning sans-serif.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Highway Gothic</span> Font used in the US for highway signs

Highway Gothic is a sans-serif typeface developed by the United States Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and used for road signage in the Americas, including the U.S., Canada, Latin America and some Caribbean countries, as well as in Asian countries influenced by American signage practices, including the Philippines, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Impact (typeface)</span> Sans-serif typeface

Impact is a sans-serif typeface in the industrial or grotesk style designed by Geoffrey Lee in 1965 and released by the Stephenson Blake foundry of Sheffield. It is well known for having been included in the core fonts for the Web package and distributed with Microsoft Windows since Windows 98. In the 2010s, it gained popularity for its use in image macros and other internet memes. However, in Google Slides, Impact is referred to as Anton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruth Kedar</span> Brazilian artist and designer

Ruth Kedar is a Brazilian artist and designer, best known for designing the Google logo that was displayed from May 31, 1999 to September 1, 2015. Larry Page and Sergey Brin were looking at designers to design their logo and website and Kedar was asked to present them with some preliminary design ideas. They liked her approach and design style, and she was hired to design both. The design was accepted due to its playful design, the customized Catull typeface and unique visual expression.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mrs Eaves</span> Transitional serif typeface designed by Zuzana Licko

Mrs Eaves is a transitional serif typeface designed by Zuzana Licko in 1996. It is a variant of Baskerville, which was designed in Birmingham, England, in the 1750s. Mrs Eaves adapts Baskerville for use in display contexts, such as headings and book blurbs, through the use of a low x-height and a range of unusual combined characters or ligatures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linux Libertine</span> Free typeface

Linux Libertine is a digital typeface created by the Libertine Open Fonts Project, which aims to create free and open alternatives to proprietary typefaces such as Times New Roman. It was developed with the free font editor FontForge and is licensed under the GNU General Public License and the SIL Open Font License.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gotham (typeface)</span> Geometric sans-serif typeface

Gotham is a geometric sans-serif typeface family designed by American type designer Tobias Frere-Jones with Jesse Ragan and released through the Hoefler & Frere-Jones foundry from 2000. Gotham's letterforms were inspired by examples of architectural signs of the mid-twentieth century. Gotham has a relatively broad design with a reasonably high x-height and wide apertures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cantarell (typeface)</span> Sans-serif typeface

Cantarell is the default typeface supplied with the user interface of GNOME since version 3.0, replacing Bitstream Vera and DejaVu. The font was originated by Dave Crossland in 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yale (typeface)</span> Serif typeface

Yale is an old style serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter and first released in 2004. It was commissioned by Yale University for use in all of its signage, promotional and internal material.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open Sans</span> Sans-serif typeface

Open Sans is an open source humanist sans-serif typeface that was designed by Steve Matteson under commission from Google. It was released in 2011 and is based on his earlier design called Droid Sans, which was specifically created for Android mobile devices but with slight modifications to its width.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OpenDyslexic</span> Typeface designed to mitigate reading errors caused by dyslexia

OpenDyslexic is a free typeface/font designed to mitigate some of the common reading errors caused by dyslexia. The typeface was created by Abbie Gonzalez, who released it through an open-source license. The design is based on DejaVu Sans, also an open-source font.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Product Sans</span> Geometric product-sans typeface created by Google for branding purposes

Product Sans is a contemporary geometric sans-serif typeface created by Google for branding purposes. It replaced the old Google logo on September 1, 2015. As Google's branding was becoming more apparent on a multitude of kinds of devices, Google sought to adapt its design so that its logo could be portrayed in constrained spaces and remain consistent for its users across platforms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">IBM Plex</span> Open source typeface family

IBM Plex is an open source typeface superfamily conceptually designed and developed by Mike Abbink at IBM in collaboration with Bold Monday to reflect the design principles of IBM and to be used for all brand material across the company internationally. Plex replaces Helvetica as the IBM corporate typeface after more than fifty years, freeing the company from extensive license payments in the process.

References

  1. ↑ "Information about the typeface Catull BQS". Identifont. Archived from the original on August 8, 2011. Retrieved August 14, 2009.
  2. ↑ "Stress Cultlogos". Archived from the original on May 23, 2009. Retrieved August 14, 2009.
  3. ↑ "Happy Birthday Google!". ndtv.com. NDTV Convergence Limited. Archived from the original on 7 April 2019. Retrieved 28 April 2016.
  4. ↑ Zjawinski, Sonia. "How Google Got Its Colorful Logo Archived 2013-12-04 at the Wayback Machine ." Wired (Online magazine). February 12, 2008. Retrieved on January 5, 2010.
  5. ↑ "Designing the Google Logo – An interview withRuthKedar". Logo Geek. 2019-04-21. Archived from the original on 2019-04-25. Retrieved 2019-04-25.
  6. ↑ "Google Search's New Interface Being Tested Now". 25 November 2009. Archived from the original on July 16, 2011. Retrieved May 6, 2010.
  7. ↑ "The Google design, turned up a notch". May 6, 2010. Archived from the original on September 7, 2015. Retrieved June 3, 2010.
  8. ↑ Eddie Kessler: Updating the Google bar: many products, multiple devices – Inside Search [ dead link ]. Google Inc. October 25, 2013. Retrieved 2013-10-25.
  9. ↑ Chris Welch: Google reveals new logo and redesigned navigation bar [ dead link ]. The Verge. October 25, 2013. Retrieved 2013-10.25
  10. ↑ "Doodles". Archived from the original on April 24, 2014. Retrieved April 23, 2014.
  11. ↑ "Before". Archived from the original on May 14, 2015. Retrieved May 25, 2014.
  12. ↑ "After". Archived from the original on May 13, 2014. Retrieved May 25, 2014.
  13. ↑ "Google's Alphabetized new logo is childish (who moved my cheese?)". computerworld.com. 2 September 2015. Archived from the original on 2015-09-05. Retrieved 2015-09-04.
  14. ↑ "Google's look, evolved". September 2015. Archived from the original on September 17, 2020. Retrieved September 1, 2015.
  15. ↑ "Google's original logo designer reflects on a 'bittersweet' run". mashable.com. 2 September 2015. Archived from the original on 2016-03-01. Retrieved 2016-02-26.
  16. ↑ "Google and Other Tech Logo Changes". Surgo Group News. Archived from the original on 24 December 2015. Retrieved 28 October 2015.
  17. ↑ "Doodle 4 Google". Archived from the original on February 5, 2014. Retrieved April 23, 2014.
  18. ↑ "Burning Man Festival". August 30, 1998. Archived from the original on May 11, 2020. Retrieved April 23, 2014.
  19. ↑ Hwang, Dennis. "Oodles of Doodles Archived 2010-12-02 at the Wayback Machine ." Google (corporate blog). June 8, 2004. Retrieved on July 19, 2006.
  20. ↑ CNN. July 19, 2006. Retrieved on July 19, 2006.
  21. ↑ Day, Elizabeth (2014-04-12). "Meet the people behind the Google Doodles". the Guardian. Archived from the original on 2014-10-06. Retrieved 2022-02-24.
  22. ↑ Google Shows Colorless Logo To Chinese Users Over Qinghai Earthquake Archived 2013-03-02 at the Wayback Machine , Search Engine Land, April 20, 2010.
  23. ↑ "Keystroke logo". Archived from the original on July 28, 2013. Retrieved April 23, 2014.
  24. ↑ Musil, Steven. "Google Doodle goes dark to mark President Bush's national day of mourning". CNET. Archived from the original on 2019-10-15. Retrieved 2019-10-15.
  25. ↑ Bostock, Bill. "Google turned its logo a solemn grey to mark George H.W. Bush's funeral". Business Insider. Archived from the original on 2019-10-15. Retrieved 2019-10-15.
  26. ↑ "Google turns logo black to mark Queen Elizabeth II's funeral". Dezeen. 2022-09-19. Retrieved 2024-02-23.
  27. ↑ Mayer, Marissa (June 6, 2008). "Official Google Blog: "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish". Googleblog.blogspot.com. Archived from the original on December 2, 2010. Retrieved August 30, 2010.
  28. 1 2 Mayer, Marissa. "Official Google Blog: Google's new favicon". Googleblog.blogspot.com. Archived from the original on January 28, 2011. Retrieved August 30, 2010.
  29. ↑ "New Google Favicon". Googlesystem.blogspot.com. January 9, 2009. Archived from the original on December 2, 2010. Retrieved August 30, 2010.
  30. ↑ Yehoshua, Tamar & Nath, Bobb. (September 1, 2015). "Google's look, evolved". The Keyword. Retrieved November 2, 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

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