The New Google Logo

In case you weren’t aware there’s big debate in the design community over the new google logo. This week, they released their new logo and they seemed to announce it the same way they designed it, without much of a statement.

Color

The colors seem less impactful than their colors in the past. There is something very childlike about this new palette that seems more likely to be found on a set of kids building blocks rather than the branding of a billion dollar multinational corporation. The punchy bright colors were what google was known for and these colors seem pretty watered down in comparison to their old ones. This is a bit of a miss for me.

Font

I personally love the font. I think the new san serif, Product Sans, is friendly and approachable just like google, as a corporation, strives to be. So scrapping the old typeface just this just seems to make sense. If you think back, just 4 days ago, now, to the old logo used a custom made serif font based on the Catull typeface. The font has been tweaked quite a bit over the years but with their new logo, they seem to have scrapped their original font all together and went in the opposite direction. I think there is a general feeling that serifs typefaces are too stately and can sometimes seem old fashion. They did manage to work in a similar tilt on the letter e but that seem to be the only nod made to their old font. The biggest statement they seem to be making is that google is something more progressive by switching from Serif to a San Serif but that’s the only statement they’re making.

Logo as a Whole

There’s not a whole lot to this logo and the more I look at it the less impressed I am. I’m a big proponent of simplicity and strong believer is form following function but there weren’t a whole lot a risks being taken here. It fades into the background more so than it’s predecessor. Some have made the case that It doesn’t need to stand out because google is everywhere. Award winning art director James Victore said it best when he said, "They don't need an intelligent, beautiful logo because they've got an omnipresent logo." Google is so big that their logo will be engrained in our minds no matter what they do. But instead of choosing something innovative they went for something very safe. This solution seems like them most non-offensive version of all the iterations they came up with. And many large corporations are falling into this line of thought like the Gap and JCpenney logo redesigns. They’re redesigns didn’t go over every well, especially in the design community. Mention these to graphic designer and beware the dagger from the their eyes.

It’s understandable try to appeal to your audience but when you try to every member of your audience by making it as innocuous as possible there’s something sort of lazy about that. A company that willing to sit on it laurels when they did so much to revolutionize the internet not that long ago. It’s pretty Ironic. The only reason why it stands out now is because it’s new but soon that novelness will fade and people won’t even notice it anymore.