How Google Got Its Colorful Logo | Hacker News Reader

How Google Got Its Colorful Logo

wired.com

25 pointsyaj10 comments

Split an article over 8 goddamn pages each with popup adverts and slow loading times = I can't be bother to read it. Way to go wired... You might get more page views and ad impressions in the short term, but you'll certainly get less readers in the longer term.

It's sad that even recent history gets badly mangled. This article is written as though she completely created the Google logo, when in fact the logo had already existed for some time and she basically just changed the font (and produced a bunch of other concepts that were ultimately abandoned). The link provided by "wheels" correctly identifies the "before" logo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Google1998.png. I think it was created by Sergey using the Gimp, but I could be wrong about that (it was before my time).

There's a Google Logo Script-fu. It's a pity it's not written by Sergey. But, I'm sure the actual Sergey creation pre-dates the Script-fu.

http://registry.gimp.org/files/google-logo.scm

It's sad that even recent history gets badly mangled.

This is all what PR and marketing is about: not to speak of companies supposedly involved (vs. hidden in plain sight).

I always thought that the founders had done it themselves (in fact I am SURE I read a book about the beginnings of Google that said so explicitly).

Actually it left me a bit disappointed to find that it had been "designed" :( Google always used to make me feel (as a crap graphic artist) that Home-brew logos COULD go a long way.

> Actually it left me a bit disappointed to find that it had been "designed"

I'm disappointed it was "designed" since it looks exactly like a home-brew logo.

I'm pretty sure the founders did this one themselves:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Google1998.png

The design seems to have been an iterative process of trying to modernize that, that ended up not being too far from the original concept-wise.

Ah gotcha! That is wha tI was thinking of thanks.

@IsaacSchlueter: I know what you mean (it's one of those logos that just "describes" the brand without any support).

While the new one is more substantial feeling with the darker tones, the original isn't too bad either.

It is a really good logo. I mean, it's up there with CocaCola and Nike, imo. I had always thought it must have been done by a professional, or at least, someone very very talented. It's just a little too perfect.

Seeing the iterations was really interesting. Sometimes you have to go through a few complex versions before realizing that simpler is better.

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