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January 05, 2006
Ogling the Google logo
Some companies guard their logo with bullet-proof glass, like it's a museum piece.
"Don't touch it!" they cry in horror if a designer comes up with a crazy idea to illustrate the very important logo partying in a bowl of macaroni and cheese, or on a sailboat, or some thematic scene that conveys emotion. Or just looks cool in new setting.
"Our logo is our identity. It's who we are. We can never, ever change it."
Sounds like a pretty risk-averse company.
That's why Google's shape-shifting logo, thanks to the brilliant Dennis Hwang, is an iconic metaphor of its continuous innovation and, I imagine, a flexible culture. The costumes Hwang creates for the logo reflect the world of Google's users, not just the importance of itself.
Hwang's newest work, which honors the birthday of French national hero Louis Braille, has the blogosphere buzzing. iMedia asked me and Dave Wilkie for our thoughts.
Other blogs that reference Ogling the Google logo:
» brand irony from Customer Experience Strategy
Church of the Customer recently pointed out how brave google was with its logo, eschewing some of the more fundamentalist brand tenants of logo worship, or putting your logo on a pedestal, by creating different logos to celebrate o... [Read More]
Great blog. I found it from a reference in Marketing News.
I suppose I should admit that I didn't make the Louis Braille's birthday connection to the latest google logo-morph, but I saw it yesterday and gave them a metaphorical standing ovation at my desk.
Looking at the difference between Yahoo! and google, it strikes me that Yahoo! is trying to convey personality with their splashy little exclaimation point and cartoon-like font, whereas google just HAS personality. It's the age-old situation of wanting to be the popular kid, and just being the popular kid because it's who you are.
The image reminds me of the page in Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics where he demonstrates the iconic possibilities of color. Three (IIRC) sets of differently-colored rectangles are printed, and the reader is asked, what superheroes are you looking at? The answers are immediately obvious: gray/yellow/blue is Batman, red/blue/yellow is Superman, and green/purple is the Hulk. I think Google can pull off a trick like this successfully because even if that image were posted in a completely different context the viewer would see the colors and think, "Hey, I bet this has something to do with Google." Which is totally cool.
UC -- I love that analogy. If we compare popularity on a stock chart during 2005, Google has considerably more note-writing secret admirers than Yahoo.
Wade -- Great reference. I would venture that Google's success here is also party due to the idea that one person has the costume responsibility, not an agency or a committee.
Ben, I think it's worth noting that Google still isn't taking the restraints off and allowing anyone to do anything they want with their logo. They're still very protective of the brand, as they should be. Dennis is indeed a great designer, but he's the ONLY designer allowed to make these changes. He has the power to modify the brand, which is radically more than most brands do, but Google hasn't let loose the logo. It's still very much under control.
But your core point is a good one (that a willingness to have fun with the brand is a good thing) I completely agree with.
Here are links to the logos:
Official Logos http://www.google.com/stickers.html
Holiday Logos http://www.google.com/holidaylogos.html
