Google's New Logo

Google's New Logo

An analysis of Google’s new logo

This year google revealed their new logo, 18 years after they launched in 1998.

Why is the timing now?

The timing of the new logo launch is interesting as it not only ties in with their 18^th Birthday but also a major restructuring within the company and the creation of the holding company known as ‘Alphabet’, positioning Google as a smaller part of something larger. The google logo now also bears more resemblance to its new parent company.

How does the redesign compare with the previous logo?

The new logo has retained some common features with their old logo, namely the iconic colour scheme, the general proportions of the typeface, the same arrangement of uppercase and lowercase lettering and the playful letter ‘e’.  It retains its simple, friendly and approachable style. The most noticeable change is the move away from a serif typeface to a sans serif.  The colours are also very slightly softer.  The new font used by google bears resemblance to other commonly used sans serif fonts with only minor alterations.

The new branding contains three design elements, the words ‘Google’, the Google dots and the Google ‘G’.  These variations allow the branding to work across different platforms, like business cards, websites, smartphones, TV, tablets, etc.  The new logo has been designed to work on a very large scale and also when reduced to a tiny size.  Google felt that it was necessary to re-brand in order to reflect the reality that Google is no longer just a site that you visit on a desktop computer.  The logo also displays better on low bandwidth connections in different parts of the world.

Does it work?

The new logo is remarkably simple and has even been referred to as dull, however it serves the purpose for which it was created to work on different devises.  In my opinion it was wise of Google to not move too far away from their original logo which was already so representative of the company.  This was a safe approach to take and their goal has been accomplished in creating a logo that works well across all devises.  The new letter ‘G’ and google dots are very clever as they give the logo more scope to appear on a wider range of products.