Google Grows Up With A Capital G
You may have noticed Google’s new logo, but a font change and capitalization isn’t all the logo change represents.
Google has been reborn. The changes you see in the video from the Official Google Blog represents the largest change to the Google logo in the 17 years since the company’s creation. Changes include a font change from Catull to Sans Serif as well as updating the lower case blue “g” to an uppercase, multicolored “G”.
While this might seem like a lot of people talking about a minor occurance, a logo change is the result of much more than a bored design team. Google writes that the change represents the evolution of Google’s original logo as well as to celebrate that their services are now “built for a single desktop browser page, and updated for a world of seamless computing across an endless number of devices and different kinds of inputs (such as tap, type and talk).”
According to most design firms, a top reason to redesign your brand’s logo is because of major business changes in theory as well as in practice. Big changes perhaps like the creation of Alphabet, Google’s new parent company, could represent a change in ideals so foreign that a new logo is warranted.
Creating a parent company for Google allows the company to branch out into new and interesting fields without clouding the Google image. While unorthodox, the idea truly is brilliant. Google’s blog post didn’t mention anything about Alphabet but the logo change and recent developments involving the parent company creation could be linked.
Read this post to learn more about Alphabet and abc.xyz.
Google – being Google – allows for a lot of discussion for just about any move they make, while other companies don’t get quite as much attention. For example, AT&T have changed their logo close to 70 times, but this never created the same buzz as Google.
Other companies are reluctant to make any changes to their logo, as it is the face of their brand. Walmart haven’t changed their logo since 2008 and we most likely won’t see a change anytime soon. Logo swaps can be a risky move simply because consumers just don’t like change. This is why most businesses opt to change their logos gradually over an extended period of time.
A new logo can have a major impact on your brand as a whole. While many companies can see instant success with a redesigned logo, others may face a major backlash. Gap took the plunge to redesign their logo after 40 years of navy blue and block lettering, the result being a clean Arial font with a small blue square. The respectable logo created an instant uproar and Gap was forced to return to their old standby after only a week.
While Google has faced a small amount of retort on the world’s favorite platform for complaining (otherwise known as Twitter), it is doubtful that they will be returning to their old font and icons. It’s hard to be angry at the change when Google offers us adorable videos to announce the change. If you are one of the few that hates the new design you have the option to go back to the first original Google design with this website.
What are your thoughts or complaints? Let us know on Twitter @Midphase