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Comment by michaelpinto | Hacker News Reader

Of course Angela's kerning is 100% better, but in terms of branding Google has always been "anti-design" so maybe the bad kerning was planned?

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I actually like Google's kerning better. In Angela's version, the l stands out too much. Its unique green colour already makes it more noticeable than the other letters and spacing it out this much makes it too prominent.

Yeah, I think she overdid the kerning on the "l". It looks separated from the rest of the word. Perhaps 13px (compromise between Google's 11px version and Angela's 15px version) would work better?

Speaking of color, the yellow "o" blends into the white background and makes the space between the two "o"s, as well as the space between "o" and "g", look smaller than they actually are. In order to look consistent, the other characters need to be closer together than they would ideally be in a black-and-white version.

Anti-design, but they A-B tested different shades of blue to get it "just right"? ;)

Maybe "against the grain" or "intentionally quirky" is more accurate?

I thought that was Marissa at Yahoo?

It was Marissa at Google. 30 Yahoo! logos in 30 days was Marissa at Yahoo!.

Google's kerning appears to be perfectly logical, mathematically speaking, according to the rules pointed out in the article. Rounded letters have a larger perceived space and so they need less kerning space.

The difference seems to come down to whether half-round letters like the G are treated the same as the fully rounded letters like the two o's.

To my eyes they look a bit different, but I can't say that one is any better than the other.

What? It's subjective. How is it 100% better?

How much you kern may be subjective, but kerning itself (and other aspects of typography) are very related to legibility which is less subjective. Of course on a one word logo that really won't make a measurable difference.