Over the years, the tech giant has tweaked its official logo at least six times. Google last updated its logo in September 2013. Some of the features in the letters are smoothened by the change that form the well-known colorful logo spelling out its name. The logo also strikes a similar resemblance to the logo of Alphabet. The wordmark of Alphabet has a similarly plain look, and this update makes the two companies’ design language fall inline with each other. So, why was the change needed? One key challenge for the designers, it said, was to refine “what makes us Googley”. The tech giant said that in the past, a desktop PC was the only device through which you could reach Google. However, these days people interact with Google products across many different platforms, apps and devices and sometimes through all of them in a single day. One expects Google to be at your service whenever and wherever you need it, be it your desktop, smartphones, TV, watch, Chromebooks, and even the dashboard in your car. Google writes that its new logo is meant to reflect “this reality and [show] you when the Google magic is working for you, even on the tiniest screens.” The new logo is still a colorful typographic that features six simple letters on a plain white page. Google would be replacing the little blue “g” icon that you see on browser tabs with an uppercase “G” that matches the new logo. “This isn’t the first time we’ve changed our look and it probably won’t be the last, but we think today’s update is a great reflection of all the ways Google works for you across Search, Maps, Gmail, Chrome and many others,” Google said in a blogpost.
Google also explained what was different via a series of animated gifs. It said the new and improved logo was “simple, uncluttered, colorful, friendly” and represented the best of Google. Google says that it has made a version of its logo that’s “only 305 bytes, compared to our existing logo at ~14,000 bytes.” The change in Google logo, which is a small difference is definitely going to be an important one considering that Google’s new CEO Sundar Pichai’s big goals is to bring the internet and Google together to areas around the globe who do not have it. The new look is expected to be rolled out across all the company’s products “soon.” So, if you navigate to Google‘s homepage in your respective country, you should see another animation showing the old logo being replaced by the new one. With the recent formation of Alphabet as a new parent company, Google definitely seems to have smartened itself up somewhat.
