Why I hate the Google logo…

Recently I’ve been sent a couple of links about the evolution of logos, one listing several big corporations that was featured in the B3ta newsletter, and another focussing solely on the ‘iconic’ Google logo.

They both make for interesting reading, but in the end what rankles me is that yes—it is iconic—but goodness me - it’s so badly rendered….

So why do I think this?
Let me point out below.

It’s far too fine a typeface.
Yes it’s typographically good to use something a little more elegant than the usual BigBoldModernist sans serif but the font, Berthold Cathull is just too intricate for screen use at the size they use. With the sheer multitude of classical roman serifed fonts available digitally (even back in the mid nineties), they might have ended up with something just as iconic but that little bit more usable if they’d used Sabon, Minion, Baskerville or Bembo.

Different colours for each letter?
At art-school it’s drummed into you that you don’t this in Logo design. Save it for kids’ books. In the end it’s down to personal choice, and I’m prepared to let them have this as without it they just have a word in a font. (like the monochrome version they’ve realised they need to use as overlays on their Adsense advertisements and Map/Earth interfaces). But it’s still a bit of mess and it adds to the visual sins of the mark.

The Bevels! Agh! Nooo! The Bevels!
The incarnation that’s stood on the page for the past ten years looks like it was styled by someone who’s only just learnt Photoshop and is gleefully trying out the layer effects palette. It’s rendered with out of the box default settings that render the bright colours they want to make a feature of into an over-shadowed lump, and in the case of the yellow, a dingy lump at that. With the right subtle touches it’s perfectly possible to create a feel of solidity on two-dimensional type, but not like this. Less it more. A few highlights, a dropshadow that doesn’t look like it’s been lit with a 3000 amp spotlight and bevels that make it feel curvy rather than cast in lead and you might just be onto a winner.

Below is a version I rustled up in a fit of Logo-loathing a few years ago (which I sent to them haha!) that I feel addresses some of these issues. I wish I’d been there when they started so they aren’t saddled with such a horror for the next N years.