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Comment by mhartl | Hacker News Reader

I noticed the new Google favicon a few days ago, and already hate it. Why use a lower-case 'g'? That would make sense---if they changed their name to 'gooGle'.

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The source of the trouble is that the uppercase G of their logo font is too lightweight to look good by itself. The Yahoo Y looks pretty good, but the Google G is all empty space. And it's probably not a font where you could get away with cranking up the weight very much.

Basically, they've been hosed by bad design choices they made early on, and which they now (rightly or wrongly) consider to be part of the company's identity.

The selection of that particular font was made by Ruth Kedar, who's no design lightweight.

http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-01-14-n16.html

What do you mean, "no design lightweight?" Presumably you're not basing that statement on the fact that she designed Google's logo, since then it would be a tautology. Are you basing it on other work of hers that you know and admire? Or do you mean that she must be a good designer because she taught at Stanford?

The point is that the logo font face was very intentionally chosen. It was not created by happenstance and eventually adopted as good just because it was old. If it's getting them into trouble now, it's not because it was a poorly designed logo, just that it was poorly designed for the purpose of being a favicon.

I won't speak to whether or not Ruth Kedar would qualify as a great designer in everyone's eyes, but I would say being anything other than a Google engineer with a passing interest in logo design would be enough to support my point.

i think uppercase is too "strong" for the sort of relaxed company Google is seen as, and uppercase letters in general are rigid/disjointed -> ugly. also, the uppercase G in their font isn't as recognizable/signaturable as the lowercase (in general, i think uppercase letters have less tractable variation than lowercase)

though i think that particular lowercase g may be too complex (too curvy)

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