Google logo

We were tasked with researching aspects of the redesign of the Google logo.

Google has recently announced a major restructure, and now consists of many companies under the holding company of Alphabet. This is to separate its traditional business with its more speculative ventures.

The Alphabet wordmark

After the Google restructure

Before and after the resdesign

The purpose of the redesign was to reflect the ways in which people interact with Google across producs, platforms and devices.

The new Google logo embraces modern typography with a sans serif typeface (which looks very much like Futura). However, the cross bar of the G is longer, making it look more like a grin, and the counter is large, make it appear more open and more legible when very small.

Its colours remain consistent with the old logo but softened slightly, allowing viewers to be comfortable in its familiarity. The custom typeface is called Product Sans but looks similar to many other typefaces.

There are 3 versions of the Google logo:

























The coloured slightly upward line of dots and the single letter G allow the marque to be used at any scale and still be recognisable.

The dots are used in animation and morph into any one of Google's brands.  

The colours on the single G encourage movement around the letterform. The uppercase G is synonomous with Google.

Almost any redesign of the logo would be better than the previous one. Keeping the colours consisent but modernising the typeface works, and the angled e gives it a slight edge.

Logos

Some of my favourite logos are shown below.

I like the ITV logo for the overlapping letters, the friendly curves and the variable colours, depending on the base image colours.

PG have recently updated their logo. It now looks more modern and simple. Again, it has semi- transparent overlapping letters and looks striking and crisp against a white background. The letters and tea leaves are now in flat colour, whereas previously the letters were shaded to look 3D and the leaves were realistically represented. The unusual red, green and white packaging make it stand out from other packaging on the shelf. Unilever, the conglomerate who owns PG, also thinks the new logo will help it appeal to the younger consumer.

Logos are meant to be memorable, simple, appropriate. One designer said she got "one good idea and iterates the hell out of it".


My favourite graphic logo is Penguin Books. It is very iconic, simple and instantly recognizable. Ther original penguin was designed by Edward Young as 'dignified but flippant'. Jan Tschicold modified it in 1946 and Angus Hyland from Pentagram updated it to its current version in 2003 (below). Placing the penguin inside the oval shape gives it more weight. The weight of the containing line, varying from thick to thin, harks back to its origins in 1935, when many commonly used typefaces had these characteristics.

The Chanel logo is instantly recognisable, but extremely simple. The style of the very rounded C is geometric in design, and is almost a circle. Its roundness makes if feminine, but the style is very modern. The weight of the letter is also strong and sturdy, not inferring fluffy lightweight girlishness, but a strong confident woman. The two Cs are linked together denoting it's founder's name - Coco Chanel, who was also the logo's designer.

Another well known logo without text is the Royal Dutch Shell logo (Shell), below. I'm hypothesizing that the shell relates to fossil fuels, as oil is created from microscopic organisms which have been laid down on the sea bed millions of years ago. Shells are also found as fossils. Is the yellow related to the colour of sand? Or perhaps red and yellow refer to the fire, heat and warmth that fossil fuels provide. Red is also a very powerful colour.

Logo design

At the start of the branding and promotion module we were tasked with re-desiging a logo for a high street clothing store of our choice, preferably one in need of the job.

We picked Store Twenty One. Our research told us that the company had approximately 200 stores in the UK. They appeared to stock mostly women's clothing (but some men's and homewares), with no particular fashion appeal. Prices were at the lower end, but not as cheap as Primark. The stores appeared to be in less prestigious areas of towns, and were fairly small. We hypothesised that the customers consisted mostly of 40+ women, not interested in fashion, wanting cheap clothing, at convenient shops (not wanting to travel to larger towns or cities were Primark would be). We guessed that competition would be Primark, Peacocks, George at Asda.

The stores had totally uninspiring signage (akin to newsagents), and not much in the way of display posters inside. It looked like they had recently tried to re-design their logo (the three line logo).

Store Twenty One had originally started as an M&S clothing manufacturer 90 years ago, with a long heritage. We thought this might be something to capitalise on.

The key feelings we wanted to communicate were:

Value, trust, convenience, accessible, British

I drew some ideas as thumbnails

The following are my initial ideas. The top four I rejected, and the bottom two rows show my two preferred logos. I will develop these further by adding colour. I think the bottom one may be too feminine. The type was chosen to look more feminine and welcoming, with more traditional styles harking back to their heritage. I wanted to update their image by experimenting with vertical text.

The logos above are my final ideas.

The top row look distinctly more modern than their current one. The first logo lacks character, but the other three look feminine perhaps too much so, bearing in mind the store's customer base.

The bottom row conveys more of the feeling of history I wanted to associate with the brand, whilst the main typefaces on the final one (bottom right) look solid but friendly. Using 3 typefaces adds more interest. The type was centered to give a traditional feel. Reference to their year of founding was made to highlight their reliability and inferred good standards of workmanship. My reservation is that the layout is rather popular at the moment so may look dated soon. In addition, the bottm scripe font is not that legible.

The final iterations are below, in colour. The colours were chosen to appeal to the client base.