It goes without saying that this icon looks nothing like Google's logo or brand identity. Not only is the "g" a different hue than the actual Google Logo, but it is set on somewhat gray background, and is it just me or does that look a little pixelated?
The audacity of the favicon design led 4 designers, from TurboMilk.com, to take a shot at redesigning the icon themselves. Behold the results below:
Denis Kortunov thought the favicon should be some kind of classy and simple symbol. "I will base it on the capital ‘G’ and I cannot really escape using the corporate colors: two at minimum but better all four. I will not use the font – I do not really like it and in the small icon size it will be hardly recognizable.
Yegor Gilyov wanted to design a more abstract symbol. "A sphere may be a metaphor for the Globe or a ball. It seems to entice you: “come play with me” which suits the Google’s image as a young and joyful company which oftentimes defies the generally accepted corporate rules."
Valera Namazov considered, Google's "mix of various technologies and services, and that the name Google comes from googol — the decimal number represented by one followed by 100 zeroes. Clearly, we have no other way but to create a round favicon with a hole."
Finally, Dmitry Joukov wanted to emphasis the search engine aspect of Google; specifically the ooooos. Joukov simple cut and pasted the double O's from the logo into the favicon.I believe all of these are an improvement over the pixelated lowercase g, however I don't think any of them really nailed it. How about just using the uppercase G? Thoughts? ••••
Great post. I noticed this a week or two ago because my Picassa album icon changed, it was so nice! It had the google colors and was a round shape. Now it's a g. Not as pretty and it gets lots in my list of links...what were they thinking?
ReplyDeleteMore on this, check out this helpful website: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/05/new-google-favicon.html with lots pictures of what Google chose from as well as their explanation on the design.
ReplyDeleteAlso go here to submit your own idea:
http://www.google.com/faviconideas/ but the last day to do it is the 20th.
ya, their new favicon's been bothering me for weeks (except i didn't know what it was called, and so cursed in very general terms). it wastes valuable time when switching between tabs, because honestly- WHAT THE F*CK IS THIS LOWERCASE g DOING IN MY BROWSER?! then i remember it's the google street view tab of me looking at your house. yes, you.
ReplyDelete