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 relied on several logos since its renaming (see History of Google), 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, the wordmark was based on the Catull, 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 cartoon 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 1998, 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. "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 utilises 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] On May 24, 2014, the Google logo was updated, the second 'g' moved right one pixel and the 'l' moved down and right one pixel. [10] [11] The old 2010 Google logo remained in use on some pages, such as the Google Doodles page, for a period of time. [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, however, Google switched to a modern, geometric sans-serif typeface called Product Sans, created in-house at Google (and 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.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. Hwang has been designing the Google Doodles ever since. [19] [20]

The colorless Google logo used for the funeral of George H. W. Bush and also for Memorial Day 2019 Google 2015 logo colorless mourning period.svg
The colorless Google logo used for the funeral of George H. W. Bush and also for Memorial Day 2019

A colorless version of the logo is particularly used on a local homepage in recognition of a major tragedy, often for several days. The design was first used on the Google Poland homepage following the air disaster that killed, among others, Polish President Lech Kaczyński in April 2010. A few days later, the logo was used in China and Hong Kong to pay respects to the victims of the Qinghai earthquake. [21]

On September 7, 2010, the doodle once again changed to a greyed-out Google logo that lit up with the standard Google colors as the first 6 letters of a search query were entered. It goes by the name of the Keystroke Logo. [22]

This logo was again used on December 5, 2018, following the death of George H.W. Bush, [23] [24] and on May 27, 2019 for Memorial Day.

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. [25]

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. [26] [27] 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". [26]

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, Google's favicon shows a capital letter "G", in the tailor-made font for the new logo, with segments colored red, yellow, green, and blue. [28]

Related Research Articles

Sans-serif Typeface classification for letterforms without serifs

In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif, gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif fonts tend to have less stroke width variation than serif fonts. They are often used to convey simplicity and modernity or minimalism.

Typeface Set of characters that share common design features

A typeface is the design of lettering that can include variations, such as extra bold, bold, regular, light, italic, condensed, extended, etc. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font.

Univers

Univers is the name of a large sans-serif typeface family designed by Adrian Frutiger and released by his employer Deberny & Peignot in 1957. Classified as a neo-grotesque sans-serif, one based on the model of nineteenth-century German typefaces such as Akzidenz-Grotesk, it was notable for its availability from the moment of its launch in a comprehensive range of weights and widths. The original marketing for Univers deliberately referenced the periodic table to emphasise its scope.

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. Subsequent Google Doodles were designed by an outside contractor until 2001, 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.

Copperplate Gothic

Copperplate Gothic is a typeface designed by Frederic W. Goudy and released by American Type Founders (ATF) in 1901.

Font Particular size, weight and style of a typeface

In metal typesetting, a font was a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font was a matched set of type, one piece for each glyph, and a typeface consisting of a range of fonts that shared an overall design.

Impact (typeface) Typeface designed by Geoffrey Lee

Impact is a sans-serif typeface in the industrial or grotesque 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. By 2014, it had been used extensively in image macros or other Internet memes.

Rotis

Rotis is a typeface developed in 1988 by Otl Aicher, a German graphic designer and typographer. In Rotis, Aicher explores an attempt at maximum legibility through a highly unified yet varied typeface family that ranges from full serif, glyphic, and sans-serif. The four basic Rotis variants are:

Ruth Kedar

Ruth Kedar is an 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.

Linux Libertine 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 is developed with the free font editor FontForge and is licensed under the GNU General Public License and the SIL Open Font License.

Didot (typeface)

Didot is a group of typefaces named after the famous French printing and type producing Didot family. The classification is known as modern, or Didone.

ITC Benguiat

ITC Benguiat is a decorative serif typeface designed by Ed Benguiat and released by the International Typeface Corporation (ITC) in 1977. The face is loosely based upon typefaces of the Art Nouveau period but is not considered an academic revival. The face follows ITC's design formulary of an extremely high x-height, combined with multiple widths and weights.

Logos and uniforms of the New York Jets

The National Football League (NFL)'s New York Jets began play in 1960 as the Titans of New York, a charter member of the American Football League (AFL). When the Titans became the Jets in 1963 the team colors changed from navy blue and gold to green and white, which they have remained ever since, although the franchise has used different shades of green and has at times used black as a third/trim color. For most of their history, the Jets had white helmets with green striping and logos, green and white jerseys with opposite-colored sleeves and shoulder stripes, and white pants with two green stripes down each side. The team switched to green helmets and a simpler design in 1978, replacing the football-shaped logo with a modernized wordmark, then in 1990 added black trim and green pants. In 1998 the team reverted to its "classic" look, with an updated version of the prior logo, and replaced the traditional kelly green with a darker hunter green.

Bauhaus (typeface) Sans-serif geometric typeface

The Bauhaus typeface design is based on Herbert Bayer's 1925 experimental Universal typeface and the Bauhaus aesthetic overall.

American Typewriter Slab serif typeface created in 1974

American Typewriter is a slab serif typeface created in 1974 by Joel Kaden and Tony Stan for International Typeface Corporation. It is based on the slab serif style of typewriters; however, unlike most true typewriter fonts, it is a proportional design: the characters do not all have the same width. American Typewriter is often used to suggest an old-fashioned or industrial image. It was originally released in cold type (photocomposition) before being released digitally. Like many ITC fonts, it has a range of four weights from light to bold and separate condensed styles. Some releases do not have italics.

Ubuntu (typeface)

Ubuntu is an OpenType-based font family, designed to be a modern, humanist-style typeface by London-based type foundry Dalton Maag, with funding by Canonical Ltd. The font was under development for nearly nine months, with only a limited initial release through a beta program, until September 2010. It was then that it became the new default font of the Ubuntu operating system in Ubuntu 10.10. Its designers include Vincent Connare, creator of the Comic Sans and Trebuchet MS fonts.

Noto fonts Multilingual font family from Google

Noto is a font family comprising over 100 individual fonts, which are together designed to cover all the scripts encoded in the Unicode standard. As of October 2016, Noto fonts cover all 93 scripts defined in Unicode version 6.0, although fewer than 30,000 of the nearly 75,000 CJK unified ideographs in version 6.0 are covered. In total Noto fonts cover nearly 64,000 characters, which is under half of the 137,439 characters defined in Unicode 11.0.

Display typeface

A display typeface is a typeface that is intended for use at large sizes for headings, rather than for extended passages of body text.

Product Sans Geometric sans-serif typeface created by Google for branding purposes

Product Sans is a 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. A size-optimized version of Product Sans, called Google Sans, is also used as the display font of Google's customized and adapted version of Material Design, Google Material Theme.

IBM Plex 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 brand spirit, beliefs and design principles of IBM and to be used for all brand experiences across the company internationally. Plex will replace 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. Retrieved August 14, 2009.
  2. ↑ "Stress Cultlogos" . Retrieved August 14, 2009.
  3. ↑ "Happy Birthday Google!". ndtv.com. NDTV Convergence Limited. Retrieved 28 April 2016.
  4. ↑ Zjawinski, Sonia. "How Google Got Its Colorful Logo." Wired (Online magazine). February 12, 2008. Retrieved on January 5, 2010.
  5. ↑ "Designing the Google Logo – An interview withRuthKedar". Logo Geek. 2019-04-21. Retrieved 2019-04-25.
  6. ↑ "Google Search's New Interface Being Tested Now" . Retrieved May 6, 2010.
  7. ↑ "The Google design, turned up a notch". May 6, 2010. Retrieved June 3, 2010.
  8. ↑ Eddie Kessler: Updating the Google bar: many products, multiple devices – Inside Search. Google Inc. October 25, 2013. Retrieved 2013-10-25.
  9. ↑ Chris Welch: Google reveals new logo and redesigned navigation bar. The Verge. October 25, 2013. Retrieved 2013-10.25
  10. ↑ "Before" . Retrieved May 25, 2014.
  11. ↑ "After" . Retrieved May 25, 2014.
  12. ↑ "Doodles" . Retrieved April 23, 2014.
  13. ↑ "Google's Alphabetized new logo is childish (who moved my cheese?)". computerworld.com.
  14. ↑ "Google's look, evolved" . Retrieved September 1, 2015.
  15. ↑ "Google's original logo designer reflects on a 'bittersweet' run". mashable.com.
  16. ↑ "Google and Other Tech Logo Changes". Surgo Group News. Retrieved 28 October 2015.
  17. ↑ "Doodle 4 Google" . Retrieved April 23, 2014.
  18. ↑ "Burning Man Festival". August 30, 1998. Retrieved April 23, 2014.
  19. ↑ Hwang, Dennis. "Oodles of Doodles." Google (corporate blog). June 8, 2004. Retrieved on July 19, 2006.
  20. ↑ CNN. July 19, 2006. Retrieved on July 19, 2006.
  21. ↑ Google Shows Colorless Logo To Chinese Users Over Qinghai Earthquake, Search Engine Land, April 20, 2010.
  22. ↑ "Keystroke logo" . Retrieved April 23, 2014.
  23. ↑ Musil, Steven. "Google Doodle goes dark to mark President Bush's national day of mourning". CNET. Retrieved 2019-10-15.
  24. ↑ Bostock, Bill. "Google turned its logo a solemn grey to mark George H.W. Bush's funeral". Business Insider. Retrieved 2019-10-15.
  25. ↑ Mayer, Marissa (June 6, 2008). "Official Google Blog: "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish". Googleblog.blogspot.com. Retrieved August 30, 2010.
  26. 1 2 Mayer, Marissa. "Official Google Blog: Google's new favicon". Googleblog.blogspot.com. Retrieved August 30, 2010.
  27. ↑ "New Google Favicon". Googlesystem.blogspot.com. January 9, 2009. Retrieved August 30, 2010.
  28. ↑ "Official Google Blog: Google's look, evolved". Official Google Blog.
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